Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 12:27:47 -0400 From: Ron Butters Subject: Re: sociolinguistic competence >Maybe, to be consistent, then, >one might become silently angry >whenever one is subjected to Julia Cochran writes: >other religiously/theologically >framed expressions such as "damn >it," "go to hell," and "oh my God!" Good point--the difference for me is that "damn >it" and "oh my God!" are not directed at me, nor are they generally totally gratuitous, i.e., they have some kind of primary linguistic function beyond the merely phatic. as for "go to hell," that usually does make me angry.