Can words hurt etymologically???

I'd say no, simply because (as we've seen) many words either gain or lose vulgarity and offense over time. So I agree that the origins of a word are irrelevant to a word's ability to offend -- it's the word's use and understanding that can offend.

If the origin of the word is unknown to either party - the one using the word, and the one the word is directed towards - then there seems little room for the origin (of which both are ignorant) to be of much influence.

However, if I call someone X, where I understand the common usage of X and the etymology of X while the other person is only aware of the common usage, the origin of X may not harm the other person, but it will harm me.

But the etymology of a word need not be what a word means, and generally is not, since the meanings of words change through time.

In any case, is the claim that the word can hurt us, or is the claim that it can harm us? I ask because I can see how something can harm us without our knowing it, but it is hard to see how something can hurt us without our knowing it.

So, if I were to play devil's advocate, what if I call a woman a "chick." This is a commonly used word. Heck, even some women use it to refer to themselves. But "chick" is parallel to "chick," the small defenseless bird that eventually grows up to merely produce eggs and offspring. Then, I have heard woman referred to as "birds" before in rap music. The common usage overtime does not negate the identical word "chick" to different definitions with different connotations, nor the propagation from the root of the word to mean more offensive things.