There was a study linked to on HN a couple of years ago that found that babies recognize swear words even before they have language skills, and that people can sometimes recognize swear words in languages they don't speak. It has to do with the tone and sharpness of the sounds.
The baby wouldn't experience the father's name as a swear word unless the conversation was for example about the dicks new girlfriend and his wife's assessment of the matter.
Dick vs DIIIIIIICK
That's what you think the world should be like, not the way it is. If your name is Adolfhitler Smith, a perfectly legal name in the US, then you will have trouble getting hired.
That's a made up example, but there's evidence[1] that unusual (not necessarily obscene) names will lead to less success in job applications.
If you have a "bad" name, it's your problem well before anyone else's.
If I yell insults at you, you are saying that doesn't mean anything? And if you get insulted, it is your own fault?
No, words have meaning based on a common understanding between the person saying the word and the person hearing the word. If I insult you and you understand it, it is me who did the insulting, it is not 'your problem'
You should try this argument out in court: "No, your honor... I can't be guilty of threatening to kill someone.. sure I said, 'I am going to kill you tomorrow at 5pm', but those were just words! If the person felt threatened, that is on them!"
Yes. It's just sounds that you hear, then your brain recognizes and turns them into words with meaning. How you react to the meaning is entirely within your consciousness. This is how you might pick up words from languages you don't know if the sounds are similar, yet you wouldn't claim to be insulted by them.
> "If the person felt threatened, that is on them""
Yes, your feelings are your own, nobody else controls them. That's one of the fundamentals of free speech. There are some very limited situations (like threats) where it's overruled, not because of your feelings but because of the intentions being forecast. Even then, there's a very high bar to prove any criminal intent there.
Considering that it is often very easy to guess how people will “react to the meaning” of the sounds you make, it’s often considered polite to refrain from making them when they would probably offend.
In such a case I would just assume you are stupid or something and keep on my business. If you don't have capacity to ignore that kind of noise you probably need treatment. Threats, however, are a different story.
You shouldn't care much if some random people express their opinion which is you're a moron (unless you meet such people often - then it might be a good idea to actually make sure there is nothing wrong with you or you are not hanging out in a wrong place) - ignoring insults usually causes better consequences than reacting to them. At the same time you usually should be worried if somebody threatens to kill you, ignoring threats can often get you in a real trouble.
The entire discussion here has been about being offended by a word, even though that word is used in a context which is not offensive at all.
Some people are trying to insult and offend, so they set their names as offensive and insulting names... in an attempt to stop that, Lyft messed up and blocked non-offensive names that share the same words as the offensive ones.
That doesn't mean words can't be insulting and offensive, it just means context matters and algorithms have trouble with context.
Yes. You should check out Seneca, and/or Epictetus.
Good luck using the N-word in the US.
The point of the comment above is that the meaning is informed by the listener, you can import all the traumas and neuroses of those around you or you can listen mindfully and limit the impact to whatever is the speaker's intent and capacity to harm you.
I once read a story of a Vietnamese man named Hui. He had to go to the court to protect his right to be named this way in Ukraine where the word is used widely and has only one meaning - a dick.