We can just add this to the list of hills on which I intend to die:

[conuly]

Cousins aren't incest unless they're actually siblings by birth or adoption or were raised more or less in a sibling fashion. Cousin marriage is very common worldwide and throughout history, and unless you do it over and over again for generations it's not really a problem for your genes.

I'm not saying we all should boink our cousins today, but I really wish people would stop talking about how gross and squicky and incest it is when that's a far from universal opinion. Honestly, not all opinions need to be gratuitously shared. (And really, you gotta wonder what is going on when somebody feels the need to talk all about this at the very drop of a hat, which happens more often than you might think. I genuinely have no idea how I keep encountering people who just want to talk so much about how gross cousins are. It's not like I'm actively looking for things to annoy me! Trying to avoid it, in fact.)

Sooooooo... what hills do you all plan to die on?

Edit: I somehow forgot how people are. The very very biggest hill on which I will always make a stand is the basic principle that adult native speakers do not make mistakes in their own native speech. (Barring serious language-related disabilities and momentary disfluencies.) This is the very foundation of the science of linguistics, because the alternative belief, that language somehow manages to exist outside the speakers, doesn't make any sense.

So you're welcome to say that your hill is some word usage you hate, but I will fight you on that. Especially if you hate it because you think it's just immutably and objectively wrong.

Comments

[melannen]

I keep trying to tell people that a story where the protagonists torture people and get bad intel makes a better story anyway, but no, that somehow only ever happens when it's the other guys doing the torturing. :/

[conuly]

I just go straight to "This is false and problematic. Torture doesn't work to gain good information. Please warn people when you choose to promote torture."

[melannen]

That definitely works better than trying to explain to people who like torture how to tell a good story with morally corrupt protagonists!