Stemming from an innocent mistake in the opening post, another thread of mine seems to have become a battleground on which urban eco-friendly warriors are flexing their IQs on the utilisation of deragatory terms for the seemingly oppressed under-class.

Now, I have no interest at all in the class war. I have been and always will be free of such concepts. There are two classes of people in the world as far as I am concerned. Those who I can get on with and those that I can't. In fact, it has been said often over the years that I have no class whatsoever. But I am not sure if that means the same thing.

Anyway. I will try to make the point of this thread clearer. Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass has a passage in where Himpty-Dumpty discusses semantics with Alice.

"I don't know what you mean by 'glory,' " Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't—till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' "
"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master      that's all."
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. "They've a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they're the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That's what I say!"[

That is pretty much how I feel about manipulating words as well.

How about you?

Cheers

MP