I will agree that it's impossible to please everyone.
I was able to get around douchebag by pointing out that a douchebag is a basically obsolete tool that isn't necessary in the modern world, so if you call someone a douchebag, you're calling them an obsolete tool, :). Then again, someone could also argue that calling someone an obsolete tool might be a better insult than douchebag, :).
The English language is filled with an amazing amount of different words and phrases that one could use in place of ones that most people know are offensive, especially online. There is absolutely no excuse for written communication not being as civil as we can make it. Well, no excuse other than laziness or rage. Sometimes people need to vent and words like Jesus fuck come out.
I'm not advocating that people shouldn't be allowed to vent. I'm advocating that they should proofread when they do so. If they choose not to and 'that's so gay' has slipped into their writing, they deserve to be called out for it.
As an atheist, I'd say that Jesus fuck is less offensive to me than 'twat'. Plus, Christianity is by far the most privileged of all the religions, so a swear that invokes something from there wouldn't be as offensive to me in any case.
I would be hard-pressed to come up with more than 100 words and phrases that I've seen others calling offensive and maybe 100 more that I just don't know about because I lived under a rock for a lot of years. That's being generous, though. So 200 words and phrases that different groups have found hurtful.
Out of the wide and varied (http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/howmany.htm) English language.
Given how big English is and how relatively small the pool of truly hurtful to a group versus a person language is, not changing it seems like laziness to me.
If it's absolutely necessary to insult an individual (and I wholeheartedly agree that sometimes it is), I would argue that it's best to find ways of doing so that don't invoke the entire section of humanity to which that person belongs. Neutral insults like asshat, fuckstick, tool, asshole - all of these could belong to any race, creed, gender identity and sexual orientation.
However, programming oneself into not using language that others have found hurtful takes effort and most people are too lazy to bother, :(.
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I was able to get around douchebag by pointing out that a douchebag is a basically obsolete tool that isn't necessary in the modern world, so if you call someone a douchebag, you're calling them an obsolete tool, :). Then again, someone could also argue that calling someone an obsolete tool might be a better insult than douchebag, :).
The English language is filled with an amazing amount of different words and phrases that one could use in place of ones that most people know are offensive, especially online. There is absolutely no excuse for written communication not being as civil as we can make it. Well, no excuse other than laziness or rage. Sometimes people need to vent and words like Jesus fuck come out.
I'm not advocating that people shouldn't be allowed to vent. I'm advocating that they should proofread when they do so. If they choose not to and 'that's so gay' has slipped into their writing, they deserve to be called out for it.
As an atheist, I'd say that Jesus fuck is less offensive to me than 'twat'. Plus, Christianity is by far the most privileged of all the religions, so a swear that invokes something from there wouldn't be as offensive to me in any case.
I would be hard-pressed to come up with more than 100 words and phrases that I've seen others calling offensive and maybe 100 more that I just don't know about because I lived under a rock for a lot of years. That's being generous, though. So 200 words and phrases that different groups have found hurtful.
Out of the wide and varied (http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/howmany.htm) English language.
Given how big English is and how relatively small the pool of truly hurtful to a group versus a person language is, not changing it seems like laziness to me.
If it's absolutely necessary to insult an individual (and I wholeheartedly agree that sometimes it is), I would argue that it's best to find ways of doing so that don't invoke the entire section of humanity to which that person belongs. Neutral insults like asshat, fuckstick, tool, asshole - all of these could belong to any race, creed, gender identity and sexual orientation.
However, programming oneself into not using language that others have found hurtful takes effort and most people are too lazy to bother, :(.