> Come on, the only possible conclusion of this line of reasoning is > that communication between two people is impossible.
Not at all. Humans communicated quite successfully long before dictionaries or grammarians came about. A large portion of one's vocabulary is learned through a mixture of (1) having heard the word before, (2) context, and (3) similarity to / decomposition into other words. A vast portion of one's vocabulary was *not* learned by running for a dictionary or asking a passing linguist. If you were studying Latin roots in the cradle then I applaud you. Most poeple do not learn language this way. > Anybody who reads a piece of text and expects to be offended, will > be. Anybody who reads the same piece of text and expects not to be > offended, won't be. The contents of the text do not matter. I certainly wasn't talking about offense. A piece of text does not have to be outright offensive to be worth changing, just as a bug does not need to be RC to be worth fixing. b.
