> This is a very stupid proposition
Surely there's a more respectful way to criticize the idea.
Surely there's a more respectful way to criticize the idea.
I don't know, he didn't call the person who had the idea stupid, he called the idea itself stupid. Sure, it's harsh, but so what? The idea isn't going to get offended.
To add fuel to the off-topic grammar pedantry fire: "Stupidly phrased" applies "stupid" to the phraser, not the phrasee. So no, you did in fact call them stupid, not their comment.
I mean, fine, if we're going to be grammar nerds, let's do it. "Stupidly" is an adverb. It applies to the act of phrasing not the subject doing that verb. At the moment that the person was doing the phrasing, they were doing something in a stupid manner, but that doesn't necessarily imply that they are themselves generally stupid.
For example, I can "randomly choose a card from a deck." That doesn't imply that I'm a particularly random person.