Respect

[Narure]

Well thats because i dont know what it means, when i do, yes, i will be offened if i am called one. Nothing to do with it being "inherent in my psyche" its just having the knowledge of what it means. Its not the word thats bad, its what is ment by it. Anywho, its all sticks and stones my friend.

[Parallo]

The way we commonly hear f*** is with, what we recognise as, a tone of anger or I-don't-respect-you-ism. Its quite natural, therefore, that when we read it we are reminded of those thoughts regardless of our understanding of its meanings. How many people here actually know what it means and its origins? It doesn't make a difference if we understand its meaning or not. What makes the difference is understanding what the person is trying to get across, and weather its offencive or not.

[Drey]

Wow, a thread i actually read more than the first line of before replying. gz cadoras :p

tbh, im quite the loner so dont know much about people respecting me.

two people that come to mind when talking about respect, will prolly sound quite sad to some of you, are:

First officer in my WoW guild, he's truely brilliant. The effort he puts into the running of the guild, 'protecting' and 'looking after' memebers and our rep its fantastic. Any posts he makes on class/realm forums get instant acclaim too. And after all that he's still about to have fun with.

Second, my analysis lecturer. He's just fantastic. end of. Scottish guy, quite youngish. Most maths lecturers seem to have undergone a charisma bypass but i look forward to this guys lectures at nine in the morning. You get the impression that the rest of the class feels the same.

both these people i run out of reasons why i respect them, just know that i do :p

some people i dont respect yet a lot of people prolly do, the army, quite a few others dickheads and bono.

[emeraldfool]

Well thats because i dont know what it means, when i do, yes, i will be offened if i am called one. Nothing to do with it being "inherent in my psyche" its just having the knowledge of what it means. Its not the word thats bad, its what is ment by it. Anywho, its all sticks and stones my friend.

You'll be offended, but you wont be offended as much as if I called you something that you were groomed to react to. For example - that post containing the word Fotze wasn't removed, even though I told everyone how offensive it was. There's German-speakers around, and it should have been removed, but none of the moderators were particularly offended by it, so it was left there.

The way we commonly hear f*** is with, what we recognise as, a tone of anger or I-don't-respect-you-ism. Its quite natural, therefore, that when we read it we are reminded of those thoughts regardless of our understanding of its meanings. How many people here actually know what it means and its origins? It doesn't make a difference if we understand its meaning or not. What makes the difference is understanding what the person is trying to get across, and weather its offencive or not.

Paro's right. The meaning of the word makes no difference - it's the emotions it draws up in you, the 'tone of anger and disrespect' you associate with the word. In other words, the psychological reaction it triggers.

If you got it in your head that 'Noodle-doodle' was incredibly offensive, you'd react to it the same as if I said 'f***'.

Language in itself is just sounds we make with our mouthes that trigger psychological reactions - I make the sound 'fish', and you get a picture in your mind of a scaly, squirming creature of the sea. I make the sound 'I love you', and you're filled with emotions.

[Parallo]

Its difficult to imagine a world without language. I think that we all take it for grated. There is a great book, I don't know if its available abroad but it's by a coloumist for the Irish Times about the origins of various words. It's called The Words We Use. It comes strongly recomended for anyone with an interest.