Erik wrote > >Out of curiosity, does seeing a certain word REALLY cause you a lot >of distress? Or was this missive just sort of a reflex action >ingrained into you by a mother or grandmother or suchlike? > >I've never understood why people seem to be so upset about that sort >of thing. It seems to me there are literally thousands of things >more distressing to worry about than that. Why let yourself get >upset by such a trivial thing? Tolerance of other people's ways of >expressing themselves is the way to go, I think.
Yes, on a list that has so many folks that pride themselves on being smart people, "fuck" carries such a heavy intellectual weight in an argument. And shouting only multiplies its depth of meaning. I think Julia's point *might* have been that screaming "fuck" in an argument generally means you've probably lost you're intellectual detachment, and that it's a good bet that the argument to follow *isn't* going to be a classic in the annals of debating. And really, "fuck" only impresses twelve-year-olds. Jim ------------------------------------------------
