Yes, yes it is posible to overrate anything . . .
Faraer said:
The term 'fluff' is derogatory in origin, in intent by some of its users, and appears derogatory to anyone not initiated into this jargon sense of the word;
Just because a term starts out as derogatory, dosen't mean it stays that way. Words change in meaning, and just because there are a few people who remember an older meaning or are aware of it dosen't invalidate the newer meaning. For example, this is the first I have ever heard of "fluff" being derogatory.
]that meaning is not universally understood, and it's hopelessly undescriptive to apply a term of frothiness and inconsequentiality to material that's vital, substantial, and often has meaning and depth that game rules can't have. Using it to describe all creative work except roleplaying game mechanics is an insult to almost everyone who ever wrote anything,
No it dosen't. Is the origanal poster is trying to insult people write? Do the majority of writers who read this thread feel insulted when they see people use that word? I doubt it.
This thread shows many people don't think the word is derogitoy, so it is clear that use of the word is not an insult.
it makes the people who use it look like rules-obsessed dopes, because it takes the rules as the norm and defines everything else by that, just as online Warhammer players describe the 'fluff' that so many of them ignore.
Warhammer is also a miniature game, where fluff isn't needed to play the game. I know Warhammer players who use the term fluff, and don't mean it in a derogitoy manner.
It's almost impossible to overrate the power of words.
No. It is not almost impossible to overrate the power of words. In fact, I think that your post is a good example of overrating the power of words. The post seems to imply that using fluff is always derogitory; even when many of the people writting the word and the people reading the word do not feel that it is derogitory.
The meaning of words is not objective. Words mean what the sender and recipiant agree they mean, and when they don't agree, misscomunication results. To say that a word means something diffrent from what the sender and the recipiant agree on is to miss the point of communication entirly.
Do not take this to mean that I do not think that words are powerfull, as a writer I do. But I also understand that people need words to say ordanary, mundane things. I also understand that the meaning of words changes, go through the etymologys in any dictionary and you will see that clearly. People often think that language isn't supposed to change in our lifetime, that english moderized sometime long before they were born, and it is supposed to stay that way.
Those of you who like 'fluff' but use the term are doing more harm than help to what you like.
Not true, many people don't care.
Trivia time, what do these words have in common?
Dork, nerd, and yankee.
All of them started out derogitory. Dork and nerd still are used that way, but they've lost some their teeth. When my girlfriend calls me a dork, she's saying anything I haven't appliied to myself. Also John Kovalic's cartoon, Dork Tower isn't being derogitory when he applies the word to his strip. Arron Williams' strip "Full Frontal Nerdity" isn't being derogitory when he uses it. And of corse, the Yankees are a famous baseball team.
American english has a history of taking words that were once derogitory and comadering the meaning.
Look, I don't like the word fluff either, but it easy to go overboard with this sort of thing.
