[quote=@shylarah]
It sounds like in Shoryu's case, just about any blanket term will have a negative connotation because any of them can be used for bashing, unless the word incorporates an assumed necessity from the start (and so can't mean something unwanted).[/quote]
That's not an inaccurate analysis of how I view things, to be honest. Let's just say that since I'm used to seeing people bash things far more often than actually present constructive or unbiased opinions regarding them (the need for me to come into this thread pages back and shoot down the people who were bashing the lore of this role-play is an excellent example, and actually remains on the topic at the same time), I'll usually expect this to be the intentions unless the person clarifies.

Particularly on the internet - where tone of voice is absent - clarity is essentially, so if a person is going to use words that hold mixed implications then they should present their stance more clearly to make sure the details of their words aren't missed. Just calling something 'fluff' and leaving it at that is incredibly vague and frankly just fishes for flame wars. This is one of the reasons my OOC posts tend to be pretty long -- making sure no one misreads me unless they're [i]looking[/i] for arguments.

With that being said, I agree that words usually hold inherent positive or negative connotations, even if it's not something I particularly have a lot of respect for since a lot of problems are created when someone takes a word with subjective applications and tries to say there's a 'right' way to use it. I'm not suggesting that's what you're doing, but more just pointing out it's one of the problems with the English language.