[fuzz4lyfe]

Have you ever considered that classifying people who disagree with you as a race of subhuman monsters is "amplifying the negativity you find in this world"?

If a bored fourteen year old really offers a rhetorical threat to your argument, get new arguments.

[mrob]

The word "troll" in this context originates from the fishing technique, not the monster.

[A_I]

Proof?

[mrob]

Wikipedia has citations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll#Origin_and_etym...

[fuzz4lyfe]

How can someone be a verb? I'm a eating. Doesn't make sense.

[mrob]

"Troll" is both a verb and a noun. Originally it was just a verb: "to provoke responses by metaphorically dragging bait", but it soon broadened to mean "somebody who provokes responses by metaphorically dragging bait". And in modern times the meaning has broadened still further to include direct insults, which is a needless loss of precision in language because there was already the perfectly good verb "flame" for that meaning . But even after all the extension of meaning, the origin of the word is still the dragging of fishing bait.