So… Restricted language in the pit. I’ll be blunt here; when I call someone “A colossal tool” in the pit, everyone knows what I wanted intending to say. Not being able to call that person “a fucking tool” or the like merely reduces the impact of the language somewhat. I guess I don’t see the point. I mean, at least in the case of “cunt” I can sort of understand what’s going on there - I disagree that it’s an inherently misogynist term, but I can see why the admins wouldn’t want it used. But the rest? What’s the point?
Mrs. Grundy.
The main point is that even in the Pit, we want SOME level of minimum civility towards other posters… however teensy-weensy it may be.
You can call non-posters anything you want, pretty much. Even there, however, we draw the line at hate-speech or wishing death on someone, for instance.
We provide the Pit to allow venting and ranting, and to allow “good manners” to drop. But there’s a point. You can be at a party where there’s no attempt to follow table manners, but you still don’t pee on the salad.
We can’t wish death on non-posters? I didn’t know that!
This confuses me. I guess I slightly misunderstood the purpose of the pit; I thought a decent portion of it was to drop pretenses and be clear - “I think you are a terrible person”. It seems to me that designing rules which seem to all but endorse this (and, in practical terms, this is a lot of what the pit is used for - many threads are directed at specific users), then saying “Oh, but ‘fuck you’ is not allowed” is less “stopping people from peeing in the salad at an anarachist’s party” and more “stopping people from urinating on one specific spot in a pee-on-everything party”. That analogy has the pit placed entirely too detrimentally; the point being it just seems odd.
I think most people intuitively understand that “fuck you” is a much worse insult than “go fuck a cactus”.
Really? I don’t see it.
Not only did I not know that, I thought I knew the exact opposite of that.
You can call someone a “fucking tool.” There’s nothing in the rules preventing you from using “fucking” as an adjective. As I understand it, you can’t say
Fuck you and other variants like fuck off and die.
You can’t say suck a cock or eat a dick.
You can’t call someone a cocksucker, motherfucker, or a cunt.
You can call someone a fucking idiot, fucking asshole, or any other fucking thing you want with the exception of the above.
Neither do I. 
Can you call someone a shmuck? this is an honest question. In Yiddish, calling someone a shmuck is the equivalent of motherfucker, cocksucker, cunt, or even worse words, if there are any. Thius was the worst word I could say as a child, and came with heavy punishment.
However, somehow, in American English, it seems to have gotten confused for the Yiddish words shnook, or shmo, which sound a lot like shmuck, and are fairly mild insults. A shnook is sort of like “loser”; someone who would fall for the Nigerian scam, twice, is a shnook; and shmo is sort of like “boring, stupid person.” “Wet blanket,” maybe. A shmuck is someone with evil intentions.
I guess basically, I’m asking about foreign equivalents of the forbidden words in general. We have lots of ESL users on the board, an lots on native English speakers who know another language. Can people get called out for throwing in a foreign word for an English word that is forbidden?
I think that’s how American English got “shmuck” in the first place-- Lenny Bruce used it in his act so he could use a dirty word and get it past the censors.
Not that anyone cares what I think but I agree it’s stupid. There should be no restrictions in the pit other than threatening someone or hate speech. If you want to tell someone they’re a fucking cunt and should go eat a bag of dicks you should be able to do it.
On the other hand the rules have been established and there’s no point in getting bent out of shape over it. If the moderation decides that’s what they want, then that’s what they get. We don’t get to do a lot of things we would like to and this issue seems like it’s not the end of the world.
Eh, it’s just been nagging at the back of my head, and I’ve found I’ve had to correct myself on numerous occasions (and Miller’s corrected me at least once) on this issue. It just seems kinda odd. If that’s “just the way it is”, then that’s fine - the Pit remains easily the most generally-qualified manner to deal with this kind of issue I’ve seen in a long time. But it seems kinda silly to me.
I see you’ve never been to a rugby party.
Too complicated for me to remember.
I don’t have any problem with “Fuck off and die, asshole!” so the language police minutiae seems a bit silly to me. The misogynistic and racist language I agree with prohibiting, but good old fashioned swears outside of that sort of thing, not so much. Mrs. Grundy’s “Oh protect my virgin ears!” doesn’t go too far with me.
“Cunt” is prohibited, but not “bitch”, “OTR”, and any number of phrases that are misogynist. And calling someone a “dick” is perfectly acceptable, because… man.
Yes because the precious female genitals must be protected from vulgar reference while the male genitals are clearly inferior and may be used to denigrate at will.
This is truly one of the stupider aspects of the SDMB but it’s not worth fighting a war over. If that’s the way it is, that’s the way it is.
The fact that you don’t get what the difference is is exactly why there is a difference.
I understand. It’s because women are precious, fragile things that must be protected against the more vulgar nature of the male species.
Exactly. And “The fact that you don’t agree with me is proof I’m right” has to be one of the worst arguments in the history of bad arguments.