In the Who is the bigger jerk? thread, Sevencl makes the following statements that honestly baffle me:
To avoid derailing that thread, I’ve made this one.
I don’t see how anyone could possibly believe that “swearing isn’t a thing” or that “swear words are[n’t] a category of words” because they don’t “have a property that all words don’t”. Some words are impolite or likely to offend others are not; impoliteness is a property that isn’t common to all words. Can Sevenci (or anyone else) please explain this mindset to me? Other thoughts and opinions for and against are welcome and encouraged.
Mods: I’m not trying to start a fight so I didn’t put this in the Pit. I’m genuinely interested in hearing and understanding the opinion of Sevenci and others like him or her and in having discussion concerning those opinions. If this needs moving, feel free to do so and I’m sorry for the trouble.
It’s expressed poorly, but I think what he’s getting at is that swear words are just words, and that it’s possible to be just as offensive without using them, as well as to be unoffensive while using them. In other words, he’s saying that he doesn’t think using swear words is automatically rude.
There are a lot of people who think that swear words have some extra property that indicates that they shouldn’t be used at all. My mom is one of those, as a matter of fact. Such words are “un-Christian,” she says. I think Sevencl was preemptively arguing against that.
It even even occasionally crops up here, as one time I got a warning for using a post with swear words. And while it was said that the words didn’t matter, I submitted a second version that did not use the swear words (along with some synonyms to hide that fact), and was told that that would have been acceptable. For some people, there is just some inherent extra property to those words that make them worse than any others. That just isn’t the case. The words are offensive for the same reason any other words are offensive–because they are specifically used with the intent to offend or attack.
(Fortunately for me–as I’ve made many similar posts since–the unwritten rules seem to have changed to where that sort of thing would at worst get a Mod Note.)
It’s not black and white, that’s for sure. You and I may find different words offensive, but there is nothing inherently different about a “swear” word.
All words are “just” words–they mean things. You can still be offensive without intending to be; if you go around using such language with the idea that your intent is all that matters in communication, then you are being offensive.
Some people believe there is a category of words called swear words, even though there is no universal agreement about what they are. A lot of things work that way.
I guessed that “words are just words” might be an aspect of Sevencl’s opinion but I didn’t want to put words in his mouth so I waited for it to be brought up. While there’s noting objectively different about a “swear word” and another word, words a inherently a subjective thing. Without a human being to produce it into a variable context and another human being to interpret it in light of not only that context but also his or her own experiene to arrive at a meaning, no word can mean anything. Saying that it’s just a word is ignoring what words are, tools for conveying thoughts and iliciting meanings meanings. If a given word didn’t elicit a specific meaning (or at least type of meaning) from most of the people hearing it, the word would be useless becasue it would communicate too many different things to too many different people. Saying a word exists in some neutral state divorced from its funcition and that a word can’t be offensive ignores the very nature of how words work.
It’s definitely not black and white, but there’s still a spectrum with words like “fuck” being likely to offend and words like “cat” being unlikely to offend. Where you draw the line is subjective, the existance of the spectrum seems pretty darned clear. As I said above, a word exists to bring a meaning to mind so you could say the meaning is offensive and be technically correct, but evoking that meaning is the whole point of the word
Upon preview: Yeah, what Peremensoe said.
Also, sorry to Sevencl for getting you name wrong a couple times in the OP. It’s late here and even though I copy-pasted it right, I managed to misread the last letter when I typed it out.
Yeah, I had a WTF? moment when I read Sevencl’s comment in that other thread, and I couldn’t tell whether to put it down to “high functioning autism” (or some other sort of social tone-deafness) or “disingenuous bullshit” (or some other sort of trollishness). Particularly connected with Sevencl’s expressed opinion that there’s nothing wrong with talking in a movie theater.
I’ll admit that I don’t understand the reasoning given, about it requiring some words to have a property that all words don’t. I mean, that’s what categorizing is. Do you not believe adjectives exist, based on the same reasoning?
I can certainly get on board with the notion that few people agree on exactly what constitutes swearing, and that context is vital, and that you can be offensive without swearing at all. But Carlin’s list of words you can’t say on TV is a pretty good starting point (even if it isn’t technically true anymore) and few people would argue that the words on that list aren’t swear words.
Well, the claimed distinction for these words would be “they are inherently offensive”, right?
Well, since I’m an example of a person who has no negative response to any of these commonly-maligned words, they obviously aren’t inherently offensive and, devoid of such a property, don’t need a special collective term.
I think the two most likely underlying causes for the contention that offensive behavior is not offensive (whether it’s swearing or any other action) are either: 1) the autism-like thing people have mentioned (in which a person is not capable of understanding that others may take offense to something), or 2) just naked social aggression (someone knows that something may cause offense, and deliberately causes offense in order to annoy).
I would be willing to bet that the latter is more common in our society than the former.
Swearing is a “thing,” but only because people think it is. Why people have decided that particular words are verboten and that even hearing them is somehow damaging to the listener, I will not pretend to understand, but enough people feel this way that ignoring that fact seems purposely obtuse.
The specific words one chooses to place in this category seems arbitrary, but it is the fact that they were chosen that distinguishes them.
Sorry, could you remind me who made this claim. To my mind, no words are “inherently” anything. Language users collectively decide what properties words have.
Some are less polite than others, but I don’t think they have an inherent offensiveness to the words themselves. It’s context based. “Fuck you!” is an insult, whereas “Fuck me now!” is usually used in a positive context. Shit is less polite than poop, because that’s what “swear words” were created for, but my friend telling me that he just took a shit doesn’t carry any inherent offensiveness.
But surely you can see the intent behind how words are used. Words that were specifically made to be less polite are that way for a reason, so even if you’re not offended by them you can recognize the distinction between shit and poop, or butt and ass. Yes, it’s an arbitrary distinction, but that’s how language and society functions. It’s the same reason that colored people is offensive, but people of color is not.
Well, as a user of English, I disagree with the notion that what are commonly known as “swear” words have any property that would require them to (1) belong in such a unique category, or (2) be avoided in normal conversation. That’s what this thread was about.
I’ve now answered OP’s question, and I really don’t want to deal with yet another instance of the acrimonious nature of disagreement this site seems to foster, so let’s just drop it before it becomes an argument. I’m unsubscribing.
Steve Pinker is another (well, not that they shouldn’t be used, rather they have some “extra property”). I’m at work and can’t find the video (if I remember I’ll look it up when I get home). He gives a thorough treatment of taboo words. Highly educational and greatly entertaining, if for no other reason than to hear, in an academic context, the divine phrase “kiss the cunt of a cow.”
From memory: amongst his several categories of taboo words is a subset of them which do, in and of themselves, trigger an unpleasant involuntary reaction. “Fuck” is one example. He explores what that quality is. It’s not phonetic (else “truck” would to it) and it’s not semantic (else “copulate” would do it).