Re: Which book sounds most compelling?

In message <mpgmu4hjr1hun0578j2i9ad5crncq68o9a@xxxxxxx>, Nobody <no@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes

To me "twat" means "a derogatory insult, a pejorative" unrelated to
gender.

Err... You might wish to google that. You might also wish to consider that some swear words are more or less insulting depending on which side of the Atlantic (or which hemisphere) you are in. (cf Joss Whedon getting away with Spike using 'wanker' on a regular basis in a pre-watershed show (Buffy, of course) because hardly anybody in the US realised that it's a much graver insult in the UK. - and, of course, Spike is supposed to be British.)

I've been in misc.writing for long enough that the standard vocabulary
of a drunken construction worker seems not at all unusual to me. I'll
attempt to write in a more PG fashion henceforth. Thanks.

Ah, that might explain it. I used to hang out in misc.writing from about 1996 to (maybe) four or five years ago-ish. It used to be a really nice supportive group - high traffic, but with lots of writing posts and some seriously good writing advice, but then the flamefst folks arrived and the signal to noise ratio got badly warped. I came here instead, though I do miss hanging out with the old misc.writingers. Misc writing was a real community with several face to face gatherings in real life on both sides of the Atlantic. (I was involved in organising the British ones which included writers from Germany and Israel.) It didn't used to be the kind of group where drunken construction workers would feel at home. Alma will bear witness to that. Both she and her husband were original m.w-ers (and indeed, met through m.w - at a wrevel IIRC, isn't that right Alma? ) as were Julian Flood and IIRC Dan Goodman. (And I've probably missed some others, sorry.)

It's very easy for posters to newsgroups - especially anonymous ones - to forget that they are talking to human beings. I think most of us here still treat each other as human beings. And, of course, there have been rasfc meets.

Combative posting using the standard vocabulary of a drunken construction worker doesn't impress me, nor do I feel any sense of achievement for participating in an online argument. It's not a question of PG language - we can all spell cunt, you know - it's a question of appropriate language.

Jacey
--
Jacey Bedford
jacey at artisan hyphen harmony dot com
posting via usenet and not googlegroups, ourdebate
or any other forum that reprints usenet posts as
though they were the forum's own

.

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