I am confused. (And also, apparently, confusing, which I regret.)
If I say something is rude then you learn that in my opinion it is likely to upset or offend a nontrivial fraction of people who read it. (Context will usually indicate roughly which people I think are likely to be upset or offended.)
How is that no information? How have I made no definite claim?
(It is true that merely from the fact that I call something rude you cannot with certainty tell whether I am being positive about it or negative. The same is true if I call something large, ingenious, conservative, wooden, complex, etc., etc., etc. I don’t see how this is a problem. For the avoidance of doubt, though, most of the time when I call something rude I am being negative about it, even if I think that the rudeness was a necessary evil.)
My use of the word “rude” doesn’t seem to me particularly nonstandard or strange. It’s more or less the same as definition 5a in the OED, which is “Unmannerly, uncivil, impolite; offensively or deliberately discourteous”. (The OED has lots of definitions, because “rude” does in fact have lots of meanings. It can e.g. sometimes mean “unrefined” or “vigorous”.)
Clearly you are dissatisfied with my usage of the word “rude”. Perhaps you might tell me yours; it is still not clear to me either what it is or why it might be better than mine. From what you say above, it seems that you want it used in such a way that “X is rude” strictly implies “X is morally wrong”, but if that’s really so then I’m unable to think of any meaning that does this while coming anywhere near the specificity that “rude” usually has. (At least for those who have moral systems not entirely based around not giving offence, which I am pretty sure includes both of us.)
I am confused. (And also, apparently, confusing, which I regret.)
If I say something is rude then you learn that in my opinion it is likely to upset or offend a nontrivial fraction of people who read it. (Context will usually indicate roughly which people I think are likely to be upset or offended.)
How is that no information? How have I made no definite claim?
(It is true that merely from the fact that I call something rude you cannot with certainty tell whether I am being positive about it or negative. The same is true if I call something large, ingenious, conservative, wooden, complex, etc., etc., etc. I don’t see how this is a problem. For the avoidance of doubt, though, most of the time when I call something rude I am being negative about it, even if I think that the rudeness was a necessary evil.)
My use of the word “rude” doesn’t seem to me particularly nonstandard or strange. It’s more or less the same as definition 5a in the OED, which is “Unmannerly, uncivil, impolite; offensively or deliberately discourteous”. (The OED has lots of definitions, because “rude” does in fact have lots of meanings. It can e.g. sometimes mean “unrefined” or “vigorous”.)
Clearly you are dissatisfied with my usage of the word “rude”. Perhaps you might tell me yours; it is still not clear to me either what it is or why it might be better than mine. From what you say above, it seems that you want it used in such a way that “X is rude” strictly implies “X is morally wrong”, but if that’s really so then I’m unable to think of any meaning that does this while coming anywhere near the specificity that “rude” usually has. (At least for those who have moral systems not entirely based around not giving offence, which I am pretty sure includes both of us.)