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<blockquote data-quote="gizmo33" data-source="post: 3624051" data-attributes="member: 30001">I think the truth is somewhere in the middle.&nbsp; I think the person who &quot;inadvertently&quot; uses the loaded term should probably recognize that his reader is ascribing all sorts of meaning to it, and spend a little effort to correct those impressions.&nbsp; I certainly think that's more productive than changing the subject to how the reader &quot;reads poorly&quot; or whatever.&nbsp; Such a response is argumentative.&nbsp; It also pretends some sort of ignorance of human nature - if I knew you guys better I could probably find loaded words that everyone would have a hard time not ascribing meaning to.&nbsp; If I'm going to claim to be the smart one who reads carefully and writes carefully, maybe I should just am actually trying to communicate to other people and make an effort to do so on their terms, and rather than criticise their definitions of words, or the connotations, maybe it's just simpler to break out the thesaurus.&nbsp; I'm sure that a possible response is to craft some example out of a ridiculous extreme where someone takes offense to the word &quot;the&quot; - but I think non-Vulcan's can probably get the gist of what I mean.&nbsp; If &quot;magic wallmart&quot; does actually have a meaning, why not use that mean in it's place?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="gizmo33, post: 3624051, member: 30001"] I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. I think the person who "inadvertently" uses the loaded term should probably recognize that his reader is ascribing all sorts of meaning to it, and spend a little effort to correct those impressions. I certainly think that's more productive than changing the subject to how the reader "reads poorly" or whatever. Such a response is argumentative. It also pretends some sort of ignorance of human nature - if I knew you guys better I could probably find loaded words that everyone would have a hard time not ascribing meaning to. If I'm going to claim to be the smart one who reads carefully and writes carefully, maybe I should just am actually trying to [i]communicate[/i] to other people and make an effort to do so on their terms, and rather than criticise their definitions of words, or the connotations, maybe it's just simpler to break out the thesaurus. I'm sure that a possible response is to craft some example out of a ridiculous extreme where someone takes offense to the word "the" - but I think non-Vulcan's can probably get the gist of what I mean. If "magic wallmart" does actually have a meaning, why not use that mean in it's place? [/QUOTE]

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