From: try.not.to@but.see.sig   
      
   On Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:08:56 -0400, Zeborah wrote   
   (in article <1intnth.1pggzi4dcry4oN%zeborah@gmail.com>):   
      
   > J.J. O'Shea  wrote:   
   >   
   >> On Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:23:01 -0400, Patrick Baldwin wrote   
   >> (in article ):   
   >>   
   >>> Elaine Thompson  wrote:   
   >>>> On Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:40:31 +0100,   
   >>>> green_knight@greenknight.org.uk.invalid (Catja Pafort) wrote:   
   >>>   
   >>>>> Brian M. Scott wrote:   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>>> It seems to me that you are assuming that the problem is on   
   >>>>>> the writer's end and refusing to consider the possibility   
   >>>>>> that it might be on the reader's end.   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> I think that, when using terms that create a wide-ranging consensus as   
   >>>>> to their offensiveness, a writer ought to be aware - particularly if the   
   >>>>> term is as transparent as the one in question   
   >>>   
   >>> I see no consensus.   
   >>>   
   >>>> See above.  It *isn't* transparent to speakers of various flavors of   
   >>>> US English.  (I grew up in California, Brian is somewhere in the US,   
   >>>> I'm not sure where, and Wasp is East Coast - NY, I think.)   
   >>>   
   >>> Just as another data point:   
   >>>   
   >>> Not blindingly obvious at all to me, and I'm in Massachusetts.   
   >>   
   >> Not blinding obvious to me either. Much ado about very little, in fact.  In   
   >> Florida.   
   >   
   > I believe at this point that there's a strong consensus that it's not   
   > offensive in the US.  There seems however to be an equally strong   
   > consensus that it is offensive in the UK and Australasia.  So while   
   > "Much ado about very little" might be true in a US-only context, it's   
   > not true in an international context.   
   >   
   > Zeborah   
   >   
      
   Even that's not clear, given that while I'm in Florida now, I only moved here   
   in 2004. Before that I'd spent a prolonged time in various parts of the   
   Commonwealth, and I hold a UK passport, not an American one. (And an Irish   
   passport as well, but I've not set foot in Ireland since 1977, and I really   
   only have the Irish passport because both my grandfathers were born there.)   
      
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