funny thread to read. had no idea people were coming from this angle. mind you that i am not criticizing here at all, just had not thought about it before.
my own language can be quite coarse at times, and being from the Netherlands i am often very easily unaware of the implications of certain words for people from other native-speaking countries. i am fairly certain a word such as 'shit' has a heavier impact when read by a native-speaker than it does for one of my fellow countrymen. the same goes for lots of other strong words. i think i once read somewhere that the Netherlands are the only country in the world where people swear with diseases. this puts the amount of value we put on these words in perspective i suppose.we are clearly not a people afraid of using strong language.
i have a certain amount of intelligence in my head though, and try my best to keep some words down when speaking online. however, being used to a certain type of language you get somewhat dependent on this when it comes to self-expression. so i will sometimes choose to use a certain word, knowing its possible impact, because i feel i cannot say it in a different way without some of my meaning getting lost in translation, so to speak.
i can also imagine people speaking more 'loosely' on IRC than they do on the forums. on IRC, everything you type is gone after an [ENTER]. on the forums, you may re-read your own post before clicking 'Submit reply', leaving you with some more time to think.
i think the most important thing here is people recognizing their own behavior and being willing to seriously take different opinions on this subject into account. a prime example of this is the above post by Sav1or.
