It's worth nothing that the connotation of that word is very different in the UK than it is in the US. So for UK people you should realize that it is completely beyond the pale in polite US conversation and for US people you should not assume someone from the UK using it meant it the same way someone from the US would.
I don't know about the other Anglophone countries, and of course I have no idea where coherentpony is from.
I am from the UK and the C word is not allowed in a professional setting. Scottish people sometimes use it as a term of endearment, but still, never when at work. Women in the UK rightly hate it as a figure of speech. I hope coherentpony gets the message clear, it's not an appropriate thing to say here.
I am from the UK too and, indeed, "the c word" isn't used in a professional setting. Luckily, HN isn't a professional setting. The word is reserved for friends and vermin. You can probably guess which of these I classify our troll as.
Well, I didn't mean to cause offence to anyone it wasn't directed to, irrespective of gender.
1) Idiomatic speech is difficult to deviate from. So to be careful, you have to be constantly on guard for how you might be perceived. ("He" as the generic pronoun is also in this category.)
2) HN has a wide audience, including people from the US, UK, and many countries that don't speak English primarily. So understanding how others might perceive you is more important here than among a group of close friends.
