From BWM…

”Although, as Steve so rightly says, there are no good guys in this - not on either side. I feel for the innocent civilians, both Israeli and Gazan, whose lives are being destroyed by violence.”

From SRS…

”Backwoodsman quoting Steve:
”The tiresome and widespread use of "innocent" is no more than a tendentious appeal to emotions. The facts of this conflict are terrible enough without our having to resort to that. If you mentally remove the word from the phrase every time you see it, you'll see that the statement in question is just as powerful, if not more so”

And there you go again. The only person who seems to find it tiresome is you. If you were ever a Boy Scout I’ll bet you were the kid who couldn’t March in step.

The trouble is, there are terms that are attached to events or activities and it is difficult to make people even think about what they mean or how they are being overused and take them out of play. "Innocent" is one that jumps out at me; it's more than the overuse of filler words ("just" or "sort of" or "basically"), it's like saying the "plight of" the American Indians or Palestinians, etc. Or always phrasing anything released from North Korea as "bellicose." Rhetorically it is staking a position. (English major rant off)”

Point well made, Maggie, and taken.

However, although I’m tired of this nonsense and have no wish to drag it on, I do have to say that, in the instance of my reference to ‘innocent civilians, both Israeli and Gazan’, I thought it was pretty obvious from the context that the intended meaning of ‘innocent’ was ‘innocent of taking part in the violence being committed by the Israeli regime and Hamas’.

Obviously I didn’t make that clear enough for some, but hey, can’t win ‘em all… ;-)

Gentle, bijou rantette over. Back to the scheduled programs….