> You have a physical reaction when you hear a sound
Only deaf people and psychopaths probably have no reaction to spoken words, the overwhelming majority of people, however, does - one of the reasons lie detectors are even possible.
Are you equating edw519's response to the stress involved of lying to the FBI on a lie detector test? I agree, that would be a very dangerous and absurd level of stress in response to hearing the word "fuck".
My point is that, unlike lying to the FBI, hearing the word "fuck" should elicit no more of a response than "potato".
Or were you saying that cringing is an entirely reasonable response to hearing the word "potato"?
I am saying that it can generally be considered normal and human to react to words. Which ones you react to and how is a whole different topic and will vary a lot depending on the person, context etc.
Your point is nothing but spinning a figure of speech out of context and exaggerating it ad absurdum and neither add anything to the discussion at hand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_speech
Only deaf people and psychopaths probably have no reaction to spoken words, the overwhelming majority of people, however, does - one of the reasons lie detectors are even possible.