I had hoped the reply to you by komponisto would have resolved that feeling for you. It came with a wikipedia link!

Komponisto's comment there and the ensuing discussion was etymologically fascinating. I doubt the vast majority of readers were already aware of the relevant etymology (indeed, you were unaware of the etymology). Remember, rationalists should win. If something has a connotation that is likely to be extremely distracting and trigger strong emotional reactions, then using the excuse that a sufficiently intelligent, educated and rational reader would not have that reaction is not helpful.

I think, incidentally, that one of the issues that may be occurring in our disagreement of how your remarks contributed to the signal/noise is what constitutes signal and noise. In particular, it is possible that I'm using a broader notion of what information is being conveyed in some sense, so I consider emotional triggers to be noise even if they aren't denotatively part of a message.