DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
While I agree that "nuts" is a little hyperbolic, I think such specific objections are an attempt to shift the burden of proof and the burden of credibility.Generally speaking, "nuts" is just an expression of contempt. If the person using the word hopes to convince intelligent people to share that contempt, then he or she needs to be persuasive and explain the reasons for the emotion. In which case use of the word ceases being efficient and compact as it is expanded upon. Otherwise, the person using the word is just being lazy and insulting.
Worse, it's counterproductive. Insulting one's opponents is almost guaranteed to make them less likely to come around to agreement. Insulting opponents just turns agreement into a humiliation and hardens people against anything one has to say.
Note, you say: [the person using the word "nuts"] "needs to be persuasive and explain the reasons for the emotion".
No. First the claimant needs to be persuasive and explain the justification for the claim. And it's insulting to everyone if they do not.
So consider "nuts" to be a contraction of "You've made a claim without an expected, obligatory degree of evidence to back it up. That is insulting to this debate. After all, this is not the first rodeo for you or us, so you're nuts if you somehow thought your claim would pass muster without proactively justifying it. We all know this. Be better."
Last edited: