[colechristensen]

I heard a theory that this kind of extreme aversion to confrontation and the language effects are sometimes caused by a local history of essentially it being extremely common for someone to try to kill you if you offended them either through dueling or straight up murder. But that kind of killing was only socially acceptable for an obvious offense so language and behavior got tied up in knots to avoid confrontation of any kind.

This is why “bless your heart” and “fuck you” can mean the same thing in different places.

Alternatively this didn’t happen in places where conflict tended to be resolved with fights that didn’t escalate to killing.