DannyBear,
It is one thing to say that no word in and of itself is 'dirty' and quite another to justify personal attacks. I said nothing about the latter, so your illustration hardly applies. I am against personal attacks. I have always said to attack the argument, not the person.
My reasoning on words themselves not being dirty is simple: Is the word 'truck' dirty? Not at all. Little kids play with trucks and parents think nothing of it. Is the word 'puck' dirty? Not at all, it's the focal point of a hockey game and a character in Shakespeare. Yet put an 'f' in front of '...uck' and suddenly you have a 'dirty' word? Clearly this is something society decides, and is not something inherent to the word itself. Is that word dirty to someone who speaks Urdu? No, has no inherent meaning, until society explains that 'this is a dirty word.'
So if it's only a societal judgment that makes one word dirty and another similar word clean, each of us as individuals have the choice to reject that societal judgment. Remember, there is nothing about the inherent word itself that is dirty, just what society decides. I have therefore chosen to decouple meaning from those words that society finds offensive. They no longer offend me because I choose not to be offended. It is a choice, and I made it. However, I realize that most people don't think things through to this degree, and they accept whatever society tells them to accept, and thus they continue to be offended by these words. For their sake, I usually avoid using those words, since I prefer not to offend. But for myself, there is nothing about such words that is in the least bit offensive.
Hope that explains what I mean.
As for JWs who come here, I meant what I said. The wide world is full of things that a loyal JW will find offensive. We can't shield them forever. They need to grow up and realize that all their JW judgmental attitudes toward 'worldly' things aren't necessarily valid. They aren't used to free speech, but I'm sure a sizable percentage of them are glad to see such free speech in action after being held down for so long. It wouldn't surprise me in the least to find out that just as many JWs are attracted to this place by the use of 'dirty' language as are repelled. Remember, only those offended tend to speak up. The contented majority just enjoy themselves here.
So if you are personally offended by the use of such language, I will respect your personal feelings. But I don't think it's a correct argument to say that if we don't curtail our language we will scare all the JWs away. It is my opinion that we will scare more JWs away by clamping down on free speech. JWs have had enough of that behavior to last a lifetime.
And finally, to reiterate my point from before, I am NOT talking about personal attacks on each other, something I abhor.
