Yes, quarreling is also a synonym. What I said was it would have suited his purposes better, the idea being that the nuanced meaning of "quarreling" was more along the lines of what he was trying to say than that of "arguing". Obviously, to simply say "they're synonyms" wasn't good enough, but I thought the point I was trying to make would be understood without all that clarification jazz, and I didn't think I'd have someone picking the semantic nits on my semantic nits, darn your hide. Or are we down to the nits on my nits' nits? Ah, nuts.
So, I will unavailingly try to make my point clear: the word "argue" is not necessarily negative (the purpose of arguing is not necessarily or even usually to piss people off), it's most often used as a neutral word meaning debate. In other words, if one is trying to contrast "debate" with a negative, "argue" is not the best choice as it's usually neutral. There are other similar words that do have a negative connotation, and those words would serve better.
Better? |
