(November 3, 2016 at 2:20 pm)Alasdair Ham Wrote: Well Carlin is right that the user and intention and context is most important but we shouldn't ignore connotations completely. Connotations have meanings too. "overweight" has a different connotative meaning to "fat".
I can honesty say to a highly obese friend that they're not fat without lying because "fat" includes a negative connotation which I would be lying about if I said it. They're highly overweight to an unhealthy degree but they're not fat, a fatty or a fatso. If you call someone "fat" it kind of also implies the negative connotation and so means "fat in an insulting way", if I said that to an overweight friend I'd be lying because I don't mean it in an insulting way.
If there's an understanding between friends that it's not meant in a bad way and it's just a joke and they all laugh together then it would no longer be a lie because the connotation would change from the standard "in an insulting way" to a more personal definition of "in a way that's a harmless joke between us as friends."
But do you not see that Connotations is the only element being used in the OP example? Can you not see that everyone on topic agreed with the OP's assessment based soley on the connotations of those words?
Is this not a problem for you? That context is reassigned to automatically fit the mob narrative because a 'key word' was used and assigned to an individual?
