"My back is killing me!" "If Jeff keeps making that annoying noise I'm gonna kill him." "Traffic was absolute murder today..." "Being stuck in a stuffy offic

"My back is killing me!" "If Jeff keeps making that annoying noise I'm gonna kill him." "Traffic was absolute murder today..." "Being stuck in a stuffy office on a day like this is torture." Are these example's of insensitive trivialization of murder and torture? Only if you're completely incapable (or unwilling) of making the distinction between words and their intended meaning. If hearing someone saying "murder", "kill", "torture" or "rape" in a non-serious context can make you take those ACTS less seriously then you're a a worryingly gullible/amoral person, then the problem lies with you, not with people who don't happen to have a joyless, unerringly literal approach to language that they use to make themselves self-appointed sensitivity police (i.e enjoy that practise humans enjoy so much that is telling other people they're doing stuff wrong). Of course, you'd never take murder or rape less seriously just because it was used non-seriously as word; only stupid people would do that. It's only those other people who would be influenced so easily by language, and its for them language has to be regulated. "Wait, someone is using the word rape in relation to the result of a trivial sports result? That must mean raping people isn't a serious issue! Thank god society has given me permission to violate other people through non-literal use of language!" This is the same kind of nonsense that makes people say videogames with fantasy violence in them are bad because they desensitize people to violence. Sorry, us intelligent, compassionate people are actually capable of distinguishing between fantasy, hyperbole, metaphor, and real life immoral acts. Even young children are capable of making this distinction when they play soldiers or whatever and pretend to kill each other and die. If you're abilities in sensitivity are being surpassed by children, you may want to redress your values instead of focussing on what you see as faults in others.