Clean-up from last night:

But the issues I have with Allyson and Zoe aren't equal, and I suspect that's true for most people. There's no pattern of offensiveness with Allyson, and there is with Zoe. To put it another way, I wish Allyson hadn't posted some of the things she did today, especially the subhuman comment. I wish Zoe didn't post here, period.

This is where I am, too. I may think Allyson may get her bitch on once a month or so -- but I think her contributions the other 29 days outweigh that, and I think warnings should be for patterns, not for single instances.

I don't have any more negative crap attached to it than I do to, say, dumbfuck, dipshit, asswipe, or fartknocker.

For me, the term takes me back to various primary source material I read for one class or another re: white views of African slaves, English views of the Irish around the time of the Famine, etc.

I'm with Susan on the "subhuman" issue. I don't read it as another way to say "X is a troll" -- I read it as saying "X is lower than us, an animal, worthy only of contempt." Which really offends the part of me that sends money to Amnesty International. But since Allyson (and Plei)evidently view it as synonymous to "X is a troll":

When I say subhuman, I think of those things that lived in the sewers in C.H.U.D. I'm not kidding.

I can understand a bit better. It's not gonna be the definition in my personal dictionary, but I can understand.

And I also like the word cunt.

"Cunt" is savagely offensive in the UK and is, yes, generally used towards men (as is "twat"). Which seems different to US usage. It's about the most offensive word you can call someone, short of "Tory".

Which is not to say I haven't used the word 5 times in a business context today, of course.

So relieved to see that we've moved on to the etymology of curse wrods.

(Oh my god, I really just typed that. I've been corrupted! Get it off get it off!)

cunt and twat both offend me. I'm pretty desensitized to the rest, but those two still push a button for me. Subhuman didn't push a button for me because I saw it as hyperbole, a shorthand way to say "consistent demon behaviour".

Such language people! I was never exposed to curses growing up. When I transferred to public HS I was clueless what the words on the walls meant. No doubt this is the reason the language has never been incorporated into my vocabulary. It doesn’t bother me at all when other people use such language, although often I am amused when dear friends apologize to me when they curse. It isn’t a part of my speech, but it is just fine that it colors other’s speech.

What does bother me is tone. It is very upsetting to my peaceful nature when I see my beloved Buffistas fighting. This is why I favor so strongly a rapid procedural method to deal with posters who violate community standards. I desperately want to find a way to deal with the rare problems quickly, and before emotions get out of control.

There is a concept in tort law concerning the proximate causation of injury. It is the initial breach that caused the injury. The causation does not need to be direct, the person’s act could simply begin a continuous sequence of events that ended in the injury, a so-called "proximate cause". I believe that the actions of meiskie started the sequence of events that wounded so many of us, and I believe that the actions of Zoe started this recent sequence of events that have resulted in hurt feelings and sharp tongues. I don’t blame the members of the community that were reacting to the initial offenders. They didn’t start it.

And Porn because I miss the porn counts.

Because, to me, I'm saying the same thing, but in a more polite manner. I will of course spend the extra time to flesh out the words to make them more palatable, if it saves you pain, Nutty.

Allyson, yes, thank you, that's exactly what I was looking for. It was specifically the use of "subhuman", and not of the lack of regret for other offenses in the past, that bothered me. (I see I'm not the only one who couldn't parse "troll" out of it, but only the bad historical connotations.) My general thesis is that it's just bad form for one to come into the middle of a discussion about enforcing the politeness rules and then express one's opinion on the matter by breaking them.

I've got a fairly sensitive rude-o-meter. The curse words of last night really bothered me. Although, oddly, I find the academic talk about curse words of late night/this morning fairly entertaining.

(For the record, my boss uses a filter on his emails. He also works on sexuality textbooks. It's incredibly irritating that all of his emails come to me with the subject "Warning: possible offensive content". Poor soul doesn't know how to turn the filter off.)

(Let me not regale you with the ongoing struggle of Sex Pictures: Why We Can't Have Actual Photos Of Intercourse Positions. Because we argue over that every 3-4 months like it's Bureaucracy or something.)

I believe that the actions of meiskie started the sequence of events that wounded so many of us, and I believe that the actions of Zoe started this recent sequence of events that have resulted in hurt feelings and sharp tongues. I don’t blame the members of the community that were reacting to the initial offenders. They didn’t start it.

Yes, to the above. So much so, that I can delete my pain-stakingly detailed post that's been minimized and waiting to be posted since about 7:30 am, Eastern, because I knew it was going to take the fun out of this thread, just when we'd found it again.

Bless you, Laura.

Kat iz a bug meenie. Warm hur.

Oh, I can't tell you how much this made me laugh. Thanks, Plei.

B3: Like Porn, Only...PORN

Grape Nuts w/yogurt:

Cindy! Mistress! I'm here. Boss me around!