08-15-2025, 09:53 AM
This post was last modified: 08-15-2025, 10:21 AM by AlroyFarms.
I am a reader and a writer. The pen is mightier than the sword.
If you’ve ever taken a composition or creative writing class you know about things like tone, voice, rhetoric.
Comedians can tell the same joke in different ways and with different results. Sometimes a pause or exaggeration of a single word can make or break how it lands.
This is why the grammar nazis, the prose police, and the typo gestapo annoy me. I admit I will point out someone’s mistake to clarify meaning or intent, but rarely to belittle them or ignore their message. Sometimes the mistake or misspelling is there for a reason.
We are living in an interesting time. Digital communication is fascinating to me. We’re no longer just scribbling dirty things in the porta johns. We are nonstop on social media recording our written and spoken words more than ever before. We broadcast our thoughts to the whole world at a rapid pace and the internet is forever. This also means that everything is now a public forum where we interject our emotions and politics into it due to the comfort and convenience of the tech. We need our dopamine damnit!
We are doing less outlining and editing of our thoughts, and doing more reactive and impulsive thinking instead.
And this is precisely why we need to stop being offended by words and telling others what to use and how to use them.
In HS I wrote a poem using the word hobo. Teacher said everything is on point but she doesn’t know about the word hobo--reconsider it. I was a little shocked and confused because it almost had nothing else to do with the poem and was used a single time. Then I was lectured on word choice and that words can be offensive and consider the audience blah blah blah. She looked physically wounded the whole time.
I kept the word in my poem for my final draft. Nothing else worked in my creative opinion. (Anecdote: that poem did go on to be published as a First Place winner in a literary magazine woot!)
But the whole experience stuck with me. I figured a teacher in a writing class of all people would understand the importance of freedom of expression. It also inadvertently taught me the power a single word can have. I decided to expand my vocabulary.
Recently I was told not to use the word illegal when talking about immigration. Okay so you’re just trying to edit my writing or speech at this point just like my high school teacher. We also can’t use the term homeless. It’s unhoused now. Utter bullshit!
You’re not reminding me to check my social sensitivity when you compare these two words homeless and unhoused. Look at them at face value. Is one really more offensive than the other? They’re the same damn meaning with a different prefix or suffix. Utter. Bullshit.
You’re trying to control how I think at this point. You’re trying to send in a Trojan horse of thought manipulation. You're testing your mental dominance over me.
I would like what you’re saying more if you said it more aligned with my feelings and leanings.
Well, Teacher, I don’t need your dark sarcasm I don’t need your thought control!
This goes against everything to do with free speech and creative expression.
Let’s circle back. Yes words can be offensive and hurt. I’ll be the first to admit I can be overly sensitive to an abrasive joke or rude remark.
But it’s not me who should be telling others what not to say and how to say it. It’s my responsibility to cry it out and then come back with thicker skin next time.
It’s your responsibility too.
People are going to say some really F’ed up S. That’s unavoidable. We hear it and read it all the time things like “Death to the Jews” or “Turn the Middle East into glass.”
Words can hurt. They really do. But instead of censoring it or being afraid of the person behind them we have to meet them on the court with our own best game.
Now when you overuse things like fascist or Hitler or woke libtard their pull of gravity eventually weakens. We start to use these words automatically, as emotional reflexes. When we do this we start sapping the creative and effective potency of our writing and speech.
You may have noticed my moniker here on DI. One of my biggest hobbies is listening to prank call shows. Very hurtful stuff. But there’s rules. Only 1-2 calls to the same person because then it loses impact and becomes harassment. Don’t do anything that is going to get someone injured or cause emotional distress (e.g. you don’t call someone up and tell them their family is dead.)
So while I encourage everyone to use their words and styles and flavors to deliver their message, I would also encourage you to be aware that your words can become a cudgel instead of a message. This is also when we stop really listening to each other because we’ve heard it before and found the attack to be weak. Or we become bullied. I don’t want this.
We have to keep talking without the instinct to censor or plug our ears. Or then we’re left with only 2 options: distance or collision. We separate or really do come to blows.
I don’t want this. Keep talking. This is the only way to understanding each other. We are more alike than unalike. Let’s start acting like it.
If you’ve ever taken a composition or creative writing class you know about things like tone, voice, rhetoric.
Comedians can tell the same joke in different ways and with different results. Sometimes a pause or exaggeration of a single word can make or break how it lands.
This is why the grammar nazis, the prose police, and the typo gestapo annoy me. I admit I will point out someone’s mistake to clarify meaning or intent, but rarely to belittle them or ignore their message. Sometimes the mistake or misspelling is there for a reason.
We are living in an interesting time. Digital communication is fascinating to me. We’re no longer just scribbling dirty things in the porta johns. We are nonstop on social media recording our written and spoken words more than ever before. We broadcast our thoughts to the whole world at a rapid pace and the internet is forever. This also means that everything is now a public forum where we interject our emotions and politics into it due to the comfort and convenience of the tech. We need our dopamine damnit!
We are doing less outlining and editing of our thoughts, and doing more reactive and impulsive thinking instead.
And this is precisely why we need to stop being offended by words and telling others what to use and how to use them.
In HS I wrote a poem using the word hobo. Teacher said everything is on point but she doesn’t know about the word hobo--reconsider it. I was a little shocked and confused because it almost had nothing else to do with the poem and was used a single time. Then I was lectured on word choice and that words can be offensive and consider the audience blah blah blah. She looked physically wounded the whole time.
I kept the word in my poem for my final draft. Nothing else worked in my creative opinion. (Anecdote: that poem did go on to be published as a First Place winner in a literary magazine woot!)
But the whole experience stuck with me. I figured a teacher in a writing class of all people would understand the importance of freedom of expression. It also inadvertently taught me the power a single word can have. I decided to expand my vocabulary.
Recently I was told not to use the word illegal when talking about immigration. Okay so you’re just trying to edit my writing or speech at this point just like my high school teacher. We also can’t use the term homeless. It’s unhoused now. Utter bullshit!
You’re not reminding me to check my social sensitivity when you compare these two words homeless and unhoused. Look at them at face value. Is one really more offensive than the other? They’re the same damn meaning with a different prefix or suffix. Utter. Bullshit.
You’re trying to control how I think at this point. You’re trying to send in a Trojan horse of thought manipulation. You're testing your mental dominance over me.
I would like what you’re saying more if you said it more aligned with my feelings and leanings.
Well, Teacher, I don’t need your dark sarcasm I don’t need your thought control!
This goes against everything to do with free speech and creative expression.
Let’s circle back. Yes words can be offensive and hurt. I’ll be the first to admit I can be overly sensitive to an abrasive joke or rude remark.
But it’s not me who should be telling others what not to say and how to say it. It’s my responsibility to cry it out and then come back with thicker skin next time.
It’s your responsibility too.
People are going to say some really F’ed up S. That’s unavoidable. We hear it and read it all the time things like “Death to the Jews” or “Turn the Middle East into glass.”
Words can hurt. They really do. But instead of censoring it or being afraid of the person behind them we have to meet them on the court with our own best game.
Now when you overuse things like fascist or Hitler or woke libtard their pull of gravity eventually weakens. We start to use these words automatically, as emotional reflexes. When we do this we start sapping the creative and effective potency of our writing and speech.
You may have noticed my moniker here on DI. One of my biggest hobbies is listening to prank call shows. Very hurtful stuff. But there’s rules. Only 1-2 calls to the same person because then it loses impact and becomes harassment. Don’t do anything that is going to get someone injured or cause emotional distress (e.g. you don’t call someone up and tell them their family is dead.)
So while I encourage everyone to use their words and styles and flavors to deliver their message, I would also encourage you to be aware that your words can become a cudgel instead of a message. This is also when we stop really listening to each other because we’ve heard it before and found the attack to be weak. Or we become bullied. I don’t want this.
We have to keep talking without the instinct to censor or plug our ears. Or then we’re left with only 2 options: distance or collision. We separate or really do come to blows.
I don’t want this. Keep talking. This is the only way to understanding each other. We are more alike than unalike. Let’s start acting like it.
