Aren’t kids going to push the boundaries and overdo it anyway? That’s how kids learn, as far as I can recall.
Fair enough, de gustibus and all that.
That depends entirely on what he’s trying to express. Sometimes it’s a crutch, I agree, but refusing to use profanity in a piece doesn’t make you (or your work) any more articulate or interesting than refusing to use words starting with the letter j.
dennis, I was trying to say that some people interpret that commandment differently. There are many people here who could explain it better than I could, but some see it as meaning “do not use the name of God insincerely,” not a prohibition swears including the actual word “God.”
I learned my attitude on this issue from an episode of South Park. In one of those “You see, I’ve learned something here today…” speeches, Stanley or Kyle says that English is a big language and we can afford to have a few words that are off limits, that having them enriches the language. And these words would not mean the same thing if they weren’t somehow forbidden. In a language without forbidden words, how do you say something forbidden?
>You Americans… I mean, you can’t say “shit”. Many aspects of your country seem like a sketch show to us.
Jeez, many aspects of my country seem like a sketch show to me, too. How can it not? We’ve had a dozen Americans driving around on the Moon a quarter century ago, and today there are way, way more Americans who don’t believe in fossils than there are Danes in total? This has to be the most amusing show on earth.
To many people, swearing is insulting. Advocates of public swearing insist it’s their right to be offensive. People who are offended by cursing insist it’s their right to not be offended. As Polecat said, it comes down to courtesy. When talking in public areas (or on television), it’s really no imposition to avoid saying “nigger.” Why is it so difficult to refrain from saying “fuck”?
I simply don’t understand people who feel the need to use words that they know others find offensive. You just like being rude and obnoxious?
Right. If I’m living (or visiting) a place offended by shirtless dudes, I’ll wear a shirt. If I’m in a place where a particular word offends a significant percentage of the populace, I won’t say the word. What’s the big deal?
There’s some truth to this. I have met people who simply don’t have enough vocabulary or creativity to come up with an insult that doesn’t include some variant of “fuck.” For that matter, I was talking to a New Yorker that didn’t seem to be able to put together a single coherent sentence without some variant of “fuck.” It makes them seem like idiots. On the other hand, though, I have a friend that’s a high-school English teacher who swears like a sailor. He obviously knows a whole lot of alternate words. He just likes to swear. It makes him rude, but it doesn’t make him unintelligent.
How? Offensive, unnecessary or crude, yes, but I don’t see “insulting.” I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone claim I had insulted them by cursing when they didn’t like it. Even if they did, I still think LonesomePolecat’s comparison is ridiculous.
This is just a little insulting. I have a pretty good sense of decorum and rarely make a point of offending people. That doesn’t mean I want the government to be very active in enforcing that decorum. And like I said, I think it’s silly and childish when well-coifed newsbots are reduced to discussing celebrities saying “the f-word” and “the n-word” and such.
I don’t understand why fucking people give a shit? I mean certainly eloquence in language is something to aspire toward, but one can be eloquent using the entire faculty of language including the words we have chosen to damn.
I can be insulting without using a swear word at all. How is saying, “Get the fuck away from me nigger!”, any worse than saying, “Remove yourself from my presence boy!”, it’s not the word that is insulting but the way it is wielded, just as I can cut a rope or a steak with a knife though it is also a deadly weapon.
Certainly the world can use a bit of decorum, but I do not think it is the government’s place to teach us manners. It is the government’s place to ensure that we are not violent to one another, not that we speak to each other civilly.
Swearing on TV shouldn’t be a crime. He…ck, I’ll even go so far as to say racial slurs on TV shouldn’t be a crime. If the FCC stops fining TV stations for broadcasting swears or racial slurs, Elmo isn’t going to start complaining about that F**ker Oscar. Sponge Bob isn’t going to call Squidward a k*ke. Because then very few parents would let their kids watch those shows, and those shows would go of the air. At the same time, it allows grizzled chain smoking detective to use a realistic dialect. Kids won’t be watching the grizzled chain smoking detective show unless their parents are negligent, or aren’t bothered by swear words. Similarly, any show using racial slurs in a racist manner will be quickly fecal-matter canned, because society doesn’t put up with that patootie, However society will allow PBS to air a round table discussion on the effects of racially charged speech in modern America without fearing the heavy hand of the FCC.
I guess my point is the market will police the air waves with far more nuance and justice than a large government agency will. Furthermore, I find it hard to accept that swearing is in any way morally wrong, and don’t think the government should be assessing large fines or penalties for that which isn’t wrong.
I do. The former is aggressive, hostile offensiveness. The latter is aggressive, hostile offensiveness plus racism.
I see lots of good reasons for trying to avoid racism even when we’re giving free rein to our basic impulses of aggressive hostile offensiveness. Ergo, lots of good reasons for keeping slurs like “nigger” or “spic” off-limits even in situations where epithets like “fucking asshole” are allowed.
Reminds me of the classic anecdote about the soldier describing his latest romantic exploit to his buddies in standard soldier argot: “…so we were fuckin making out on the fuckin couch and started fuckin petting and all and she fuckin gets up and says she wants to get more fuckin comfortable and goes into the fuckin bedroom and fuckin calls me in and I go in and she’s laying on the fuckin bed in a fuckin black lace teddy…”
[Panting buddies:] “Yeah? So what happened?”
[Soldier, scornfully:] “What the fuck do you fuckin think happened, you fuckin morons? We had sexual intercourse.”
Precisely, nor do I expect you to. I don’t require a bubble to protect me from everything I find offensive.
Which is another problem with the idea that it should be illegal to swear on the air because it offends some people; everything offends some people. If you want to avoid offending people on the air, shut off the TV station.
Now, if you were in my home ( my home, my rules ) or some place that I can’t just walk away or turn of the TV/close the thread/whatever, then yes, you should moderate your language. Professional or guest behavior is supposed to be much more restrained for just that reason. Those are rules, not laws, however.
You don’t find words (or phrases) like “fucker” or “cocksucker” or “bastard” or “son of a bitch” insulting? That’s their entire purpose. Those words exist to insult. The original meanings are irrelevant (if you think about it, calling someone a “fucker” shouldn’t be insulting. Most of us are)–the common usage of the words is simply to hurt people.
All I’m talking about is courtesy. I know my kids have heard it all in school, but they understand that the language used by a group of boys in a locker room is not appropriate for visiting grandma. There was a group of guys at the table next to us in a restaurant, talking loudly and using “fuck” in every sentence. My wife and daughter were upset and wanted to leave. I just asked the guys if they could please moderate their language because my wife and kids were bothered by it. They apologized and continued their conversation without obscenities.
This highlights what I don’t get: If the guys were perfectly capable of carrying on a conversation like civilized adults, why were they swearing like junior high school kids in the first place? There’s no shock value. Nobody had hit their finger with a hammer. They were just using the word as filler, like “um” or “you know.”
In other words, what’s the point of obscenities in normal conversation? Why use them?
Some people do not consider these words to be “obscene,” but because they are still considered a little taboo, they are used for emphasis. The young especially tend to use them a whole lot because they are barely beyond the taboo years.
Words are only symbols. There are no “bad” words. We give them their meaning. That doesn’t mean that words can’t be used to hurt and offend when we know what meaning others give to them and they know what meaning we give to them. I was once slapped very hard for saying Good grief! (Charlie Brown would be about my age, by the way.)
I sometimes use swear words to attack people, but I don’t make a habit of it. I began avoiding c–ks–k-r when I discovered that gay friends are offended by its use. I don’t use any racial slurs that I know of. Very rarely I will call a girlfriend “bitch” just to get a laugh. I’m trying to break the habit of saying, “Good God,” now that I’m going to church again. But everything else is fine with me. I just generally don’t use it to hurt people intentionally.
To me it is the intentional infliction of distress that is obscene – not the words themselves. If I know that you will be offended, I won’t use the words, but I don’t make that assumption in public.
Personally, I find dropping more than the occasional ‘fuck’ to be somewhat of a useful method of avoiding one of my pet hates (within myself) of saying ‘ummmm…’ or ‘ahhh…’ or the dreaded ‘like’ as a pause in a sentence. The reason for it is that, like some people do when smoking, it gives your mind and mouth a chance to resynchronise themselves.
For example I find myself having to pause in sentence to collect my thoughts - I personally dislike saying ‘uhhhh…’ or ‘like’.
I’d much rather say fuck.
It’s a nice sounding word, it is expressive and lets out energy when saying it.
What’s interesting though is the very gender specific reaction to the use of slang genitalia as swearing that’s been anecdotally noticed.
The gender seems to react worse to their own genitals being used as an epithet than the opposite gender. Women who may say fuck more than me will react in horror if someone calls someone a c**t, yet men will use it with impunity. Call a man a prick or a dickhead, and they seem to in some cases get more offended. Women use both a lot more regularly.
WeeBairn, you’re missing a phrase in your sentences. Instead of “XXX = not insulting” you need to say “XXX = not insulting to me.”
Again, nobody’s addressed my point. It’s inarguable that millions of people in this country are offended by words like “fuck.” The word serves no useful purpose that can’t be filled by other less-offensive words. Most of the sentences I hear with variants of “fuck” in them would keep there meaning totally unchanged if the word were simply removed.
What’s the big deal about not using it? If I’m in a country where polite adults don’t say the word “squidgerific,” then I won’t say it, and it won’t bother me a bit. It’s no inconvenience to avoid “cocksucker” because it offends gay people, so why is it such a huge inconvenience to avoid “fuck” because it offends other people?
I’m not being argumentative. I really, truly don’t get why the word is so important to you.