Unless you are writing about cancer, do not use the word “cancer.” Or tumor, malignant, or metastasize. Everybody has, has had, or knows someone who has, had, or died of cancer. Find a different metaphor to avoid sending your audience’s minds to an awful place. (4/n)

I’ve had cancer and I totally disagree.

the only exception I make for this is to call Rupert Murdoch a cancer in the body politic of three continents, because it seems like a very accurate metaphor to me and Murdoch's actions and political influence have led directly to widespread suffering and death

Are you really arguing that people who have had cancer, or lost someone to it, will never think about it if only writers avoid using it as a (strong and often accurate) metaphor?

lol, this is like when Joyce Carol Oates said putting up skeleton decorations for Halloween was disrespectful to people who have lost loved ones. I think you’re overthinking this.

Words are a means to meaning. When I say ‘Donald trump is a fucking cancer on our nation,’ that is absolutely the correct use of the word cancer. Because unless the damage he’s done is treated, our body politic will die.

Sometimes it’s fine to use “seminal” or “spawn” but be aware that the former refers to semen and the latter to amphibians and fish ejecting sperm and eggs. That might not be the image you want to evoke. (5/n)

I've had cancer, I lost my dad to it, and you need to grow up tbh. You know how old I was when my dad was terminally ill? NINE. My brother was seven. My parents never sugarcoated it. I'm glad they didn't. You don't live in the real world.

Or people could develop just a smidge of detachment that would be necessary to understand that everything being written isn’t being written exclusively for them & their sensibilities

I decline.

This is the dumbest take