It does seem like the defenses of words people "don't understand" is just repeating the idea that first caused offense. Whether you add a sexual connotation to "draggle-tailed" or the monster connotation to "nithing" they're all expression the same thing, aren't they?

Draggle-tailed refers to the hem of one's clothing dragging in the gutter. "Nithing" separates the person from the cultured people indoors.

So there's the one side who are out in the gutter being loud-mouths, and they're bothering the cultured, educated people who are trying to have an actual conversation with their opinions. And only the cultured people know the "correct" meanings of their insults, which are apparently just bad enough to show how clever and witty the cultured person is, but not bad enough that the person insulted has a right to accuse them of being vulgar. Even if the person knows that these words have historically meant slut, sexually promiscuous, disgusting and less-than-human--well, they're still showing how uneducated they are for not realizing what definition is correct. So even if you look up the word in a dictionary you're still just showing how incapable you are of following the conversation.