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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fanboy2000" data-source="post: 1683946" data-attributes="member: 19998">Yes, yes it is posible to overrate anything . . .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. 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. 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. 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. 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.</blockquote>

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