Yup, and then, too, sometimes writers need to decide who they're
willing to irritate and who they _don't_ want to irritate. It's
impossible to find language to which nobody objects; writers are always
choosing a subset of a particular audience as _their_ intended audience.
That choice, I think, has to be guided by the writer's purpose; if her
purpose is to communicate with the people who are likely to object to her
language, well, there's a problem. If her purpose is to communicate with
the people who also use that language, there is no problem, although
others might object. Instead of the seven words you can't say on _____,
maybe we can recast this discussion as the zillion words whose baggage it
wouldn't hurt to be aware of.
Marcy
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Marcy Bauman
Writing Program, University of Michigan-Dearborn
4901 Evergreen Rd, Dearborn, MI 48128
fax: 313-593-5552
http://www.umd.umich.edu/~marcyb
marcyb@umich.edu
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