Radio - foul language

Dave Kearton wrote:

snip

Point well made - however, just as some people would prefer not to hear such
words in conversation, possibly the same would not want to see them as
well. Veiling a word behind #$@% is tantamount to beeping out a
word on TV

I'd have to disagree: if there is no doubt what the word is, how are anyone's
presumably tender sensibilities being protected?

and now, putting an electronic patch to prevent the
tender-hearted from accidentally lipreading something offensive.

I guess it's time to stock smelling salts again, to revive all the fragile souls
who will be swooning into a dead faint from the mere knowledge that someone has
used an anglo-saxonism. Where is Queen Victoria when we need her?

While I've done precisely as you describe, just recently, I tend to agree
with you. OTOH, part of polite discourse in the company of those of
whom you are not familiar, is not to use terms or language that will
reasonably offend anybody.

Certainly. Just because one may have the vocabulary of a teamster doesn't mean
that it's appropriate to use it on all occasions. I _am_ a teamster, but being
around people every day who repeat the words I listed in my previous post (with
numerous minor variations) hundreds of times a day, I'm not shocked by their
use, just bored. Most people who can't manage to string more than three or four
words together without using one of the aforementioned anglo-saxonisms are
either suffering from a limited vocabulary, are lazy, or else feel that it
somehow makes them seem more macho.

Overuse of these words removes much of their force, which is a shame. Used
sparingly and in the right circumstances, cursing can be appropriate and even an
art form, and it's not necessary to use profanity. TM Oliver and Eugene
Griessel over on r.a.m. manage to be far more entertaining and much less
repetitive than my fellow workers. Well, perhaps they to tend to ascribe a 'wee
bit ower much' to the cursee (or his/her antecedents) bestial practices
involving camels, but that's a minor criticism.

But I digress. All I'm saying is that I find it hard to believe that any
rational person who would be offended by hearing or seeing the more vigorous
english swear words, is less likely to be offended if the word is disguised with
asterisks, dashes or just misspelled. Were the people who would be offended by
seeing the word '****' and its variations in print, any less offended when
Norman Mailer bowdlerized it into 'fug' instead in the "Naked and the Dead",
because it was a close as contemporary bluenoses would let him come to
accurately conveying the dialog of his characters? When Dr. Evil or Grace
("Will and Grace") uses 'Fricking' in place of '****ing,' is anyone fooled?
Like the current hullabaloo about Janet Jackson at the Superbowl, this is pure
hypocracy, brought on by silly censorship.

Same same with 'g_d', 'G_d' and 'god'. My Baptist roots go way
back; if you have to use his name in vain - at least spell it correctly.

It's not exactly a new phenomenon. Maybe depression-era audiences really were
that naive, but somehow I doubt that audiences had any trouble translating W.C.
Fields' exclamation "Godfrey Daniels!" when he was expessing exasperation. Such
silly games are brought on by people trying to evade the usually illogical and
often idiotic dictates of censors, such as those of the old Hays Code or the
Broadcast Standards department of a TV network.

Guy

even though we all know what's going on inside a bathroom, we dont
necessarily want to see it.
It's not the end of the world if we hear/see the words , just that
sometimes we would rather not. And I agree cursing has rendered the words
ineffectuall for the shock value that we once used them for, now they are
just a nuisence vulgarity, like Christina Aguilara lol.

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
Dave Kearton wrote:

snip

Point well made - however, just as some people would prefer not to hear
such
words in conversation, possibly the same would not want to see them as
well. Veiling a word behind #$@% is tantamount to beeping out a
word on TV

I'd have to disagree: if there is no doubt what the word is, how are
anyone's
presumably tender sensibilities being protected?

and now, putting an electronic patch to prevent the
tender-hearted from accidentally lipreading something offensive.

I guess it's time to stock smelling salts again, to revive all the fragile
souls
who will be swooning into a dead faint from the mere knowledge that
someone has
used an anglo-saxonism. Where is Queen Victoria when we need her?

While I've done precisely as you describe, just recently, I tend to
agree
with you. OTOH, part of polite discourse in the company of those
of
whom you are not familiar, is not to use terms or language that will
reasonably offend anybody.

Certainly. Just because one may have the vocabulary of a teamster doesn't
mean
that it's appropriate to use it on all occasions. I _am_ a teamster, but
being
around people every day who repeat the words I listed in my previous post
(with
numerous minor variations) hundreds of times a day, I'm not shocked by
their
use, just bored. Most people who can't manage to string more than three
or four
words together without using one of the aforementioned anglo-saxonisms are
either suffering from a limited vocabulary, are lazy, or else feel that it
somehow makes them seem more macho.

Overuse of these words removes much of their force, which is a shame.
Used
sparingly and in the right circumstances, cursing can be appropriate and
even an
art form, and it's not necessary to use profanity. TM Oliver and Eugene
Griessel over on r.a.m. manage to be far more entertaining and much less
repetitive than my fellow workers. Well, perhaps they to tend to ascribe
a 'wee
bit ower much' to the cursee (or his/her antecedents) bestial practices
involving camels, but that's a minor criticism.

But I digress. All I'm saying is that I find it hard to believe that any
rational person who would be offended by hearing or seeing the more
vigorous
english swear words, is less likely to be offended if the word is
disguised with
asterisks, dashes or just misspelled. Were the people who would be
offended by
seeing the word '****' and its variations in print, any less offended when
Norman Mailer bowdlerized it into 'fug' instead in the "Naked and the
Dead",
because it was a close as contemporary bluenoses would let him come to
accurately conveying the dialog of his characters? When Dr. Evil or Grace
("Will and Grace") uses 'Fricking' in place of '****ing,' is anyone
fooled?
Like the current hullabaloo about Janet Jackson at the Superbowl, this is
pure
hypocracy, brought on by silly censorship.

Same same with 'g_d', 'G_d' and 'god'. My Baptist roots go
way
back; if you have to use his name in vain - at least spell it
correctly.

It's not exactly a new phenomenon. Maybe depression-era audiences really
were
that naive, but somehow I doubt that audiences had any trouble translating
W.C.
Fields' exclamation "Godfrey Daniels!" when he was expessing exasperation.
Such
silly games are brought on by people trying to evade the usually
illogical and
often idiotic dictates of censors, such as those of the old Hays Code or
the
Broadcast Standards department of a TV network.

Guy

Kids in high school now call the sluts this, as in "She's an aguilara."
So, if your daughter is being called this a lot, you might want to get her
a jumbo box of prophylactics and maybe some prescriptions.

"Boomer" wrote

just a nuisence vulgarity, like Christina Aguilara lol.

I'd have to disagree: if there is no doubt what the word is, how are anyone's
presumably tender sensibilities being protected?


Because there are youngsters that visit newsgroups as well as us old pharts -
personally, I'd rather not be the one to add select words to their vocabulary.
Will they learn them? Most certainly. Hopefully, not from me.

The way an English teacher once explained it, "F-words" are for people with
limited vocabularies - if thats the best word you know for a given situation,
it shows your lack of education." I probably thought , "What the #$^% does she
know??" at the time....

v/r
@#$%%# Gordon

On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 09:47:27 GMT, Guy Alcala
wrote:

Dave Kearton wrote:

Point well made - however, just as some people would prefer not to hear such
words in conversation, possibly the same would not want to see them as
well. Veiling a word behind #$@% is tantamount to beeping out a
word on TV

I'd have to disagree: if there is no doubt what the word is, how are anyone's
presumably tender sensibilities being protected?

and now, putting an electronic patch to prevent the
tender-hearted from accidentally lipreading something offensive.

I guess it's time to stock smelling salts again, to revive all the fragile souls
who will be swooning into a dead faint from the mere knowledge that someone has
used an anglo-saxonism. Where is Queen Victoria when we need her?


I'm continually reminding my students (particularly when they lapse
into vulgarities in classroom discussion) that language is richer than
simply depending upon a half dozen expletives to fit every situation.

I suggest that there is much enjoyment to be gained by insulting one
in such expressive rhetoric that they don't realize until two days
later that they have been trashed.

There is also the loss of ability to really shock when it is required
if the most shocking terms are worn out by daily application.

I proudly point out that the basic Anglo-Saxon reference to copulation
does not appear at all in When Thunder Rolled, although there are two
"****s" and a "bull****". The second book (currently in the hands of
the publisher) contains one "****ing" used as an adjective in a direct
quote from a POW.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

"A four-letter word, a four-letter word
To ban it would be a shame
It's honest, it's earthy, it ought to be heard
That wonderful one-two-three-four letter word.

It shouldn't be said in polite company
When genteel old ladies are sipping their tea
But if those ladies' pasts were revealed - sure as hell
They've not only said it, they've done it as well!"

(arr. Billy Connolly)

Perfect! This one definitely shall be saved in my "good stuff" folder.

Ed Rasimus wrote:

On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 09:47:27 GMT, Guy Alcala
wrote:

snip

I guess it's time to stock smelling salts again, to revive all the fragile souls
who will be swooning into a dead faint from the mere knowledge that someone has
used an anglo-saxonism. Where is Queen Victoria when we need her?


I'm continually reminding my students (particularly when they lapse
into vulgarities in classroom discussion) that language is richer than
simply depending upon a half dozen expletives to fit every situation.

Couldn't agree more. Early on as a teamster, I realized that my language had become
extrememly coarse, and more importantly, I noticed that my thinking seemed to be
coarsening along with it. So, I made a conscious decision to clean it up and
exercise my vocabulary, saving the expletives for appropriate occasions.

I suggest that there is much enjoyment to be gained by insulting one
in such expressive rhetoric that they don't realize until two days
later that they have been trashed.

Unfortunately, many of the people who you insult in this fashion are unable to _ever_
realize that you've insulted them, which takes much of the fun out. ;-)

There is also the loss of ability to really shock when it is required
if the most shocking terms are worn out by daily application.

Definitely. I can still remember our mild shock (and amusement) when, as 13 year old
Boy Scouts, my friends and I heard my mild-mannered, religious and always well-spoken
Scoutmaster cut loose. We were in the middle of a week-long backpacking trip, it had
been a long, tiring, frustrating day, and we were crossing over a small stream on
some brush cover when he took a misstep and fell through up to his thighs in 35
degree water, being trapped there for several minutes. The air turned a deep and IMO
entirely justified shade of blue while he extricated himself. Naive souls that we
were, we thought that he didn't even know those words, having never heard him use
them before (and almost never afterwards). Which was pretty silly of us, as he'd
grown up on a farm, had served in the army in WW2, and had worked blue-collar jobs
all his life. He demonstrated a familiarity with their appropriate use that, if
anything, caused us to respect and like him even more than we already did.

And another time, when we heard a kid who never uttered even the mildest oath let
loose with a "goddamnit," we knew something was seriously wrong and all came running.

I proudly point out that the basic Anglo-Saxon reference to copulation
does not appear at all in When Thunder Rolled, although there are two
"****s" and a "bull****". The second book (currently in the hands of
the publisher) contains one "****ing" used as an adjective in a direct
quote from a POW.

And that, I feel, is when they should be used in full, without playing silly games,
to properly convey the flavor of the situation. One of my favorite examples of this,
and one of the most egregious examples of not just silly but also stupid censorship,
was in the movie MASH. In the course of that, Bobby Troup plays a sergeant who has
to drive around Hawkeye (Donald Sutherland) and Trapper John (Elliot Gould) around
various spots in Japan, especially a golf course, while they're dressed up in bizarre
Japanese costumes and acting like buffoons. Troup's muttering under his breath of
"God Damned army" at their antics on several occasions, in a tone that totally
indicated his disgust and resentment at officers, his situation, and the military in
general, was classic, and reminiscent of Willie and Joe at their best. And yet, ever
since I first saw it uncut when it was released in 1970 or so, for television and
even some versions of the movie, "God" has been routinely muted, leaving Troup's lips
moving throughout but the phrase coming out "___ Damned Army," ruining much of the
comic effect (at least for me).

As an example of just hownon-sensical this particular piece of censorship is, it's
hard for me to believe that anyone who would be offended by the utterance of the
phrase "God Damned" will be placated by its removal (and the word "screw" as in
"Hotlips? Screw her!"), when the movie retains its theme song ("Suicide is
Painless") and a story line involving the (physically) "best-equipped dentist in the
Far East" fearing that his first episode of impotence means he's become a latent
homosexual, he becomes depressive and decides to kill himself, is given a final meal
which deliberately apes paintings of the Last Supper, is given the "Last Rites" by a
Catholic priest, and is then assisted to commit a mock 'suicide' after which he is
"resurrected" by a nurse having sex with him (out of wedlock, no less!) while he is
unconscious and then tying a blue ribbon around his penis (that last may have been in
the book but not the movie: it's been almost 35 years). Yeah, nothing offensive to
conservative Christians in any of that, just make sure you remove that "God" ;-)

BUFDRVR's quote which started my rant being another case in point, unless we're
supposed to believe that the person in question was really saying something like
"Level the farting town!" In that particular case, I doubt that anyone given the
context and supplied with just the following, "Level the (expletive deleted) town!",
would be unable to supply the missing word (or a compound version), so pretending to
hide it behind #@%& or ---- is both puerile and pointless.

Guy

Krztalizer wrote:


I'd have to disagree: if there is no doubt what the word is, how are anyone's
presumably tender sensibilities being protected?


Because there are youngsters that visit newsgroups as well as us old pharts -
personally, I'd rather not be the one to add select words to their vocabulary.
Will they learn them? Most certainly. Hopefully, not from me.

Gordon, how many youngsters would you say visit this newsgroup? Aside from the
occasional adolescent, who usually doesn't stick around very long and who has
undoubtedly long-since learned these words (as they usually resort to them when
their wild claims are demolished by the regulars)? I'd say very few, and if
they're mature enough to find this newsgroup and understand the conversations, then
they've been exposed to far more swearing and adult language in their culture than
either you or I likely were at a similar age. I grew up watching "Leave it to
Beaver" re-runs, not the "Simpsons" or "South Park," and there weren't any 'gangsta
rappers on the radio (and no MTV) either. No TV beer commercials featuring dogs
biting men in the genitals, no ads for Viagra, Levitra, or incontinence products,
no Jerry Springer, etc. etc.

The way an English teacher once explained it, "F-words" are for people with
limited vocabularies - if thats the best word you know for a given situation,
it shows your lack of education." I probably thought , "What the #$^% does she
know??" at the time....

Didn't we all:-) See my reply to Ed for my reasoning as to when it's appropriate.

v/r
@#$%%# Gordon

Guy

Boomer wrote:

even though we all know what's going on inside a bathroom, we dont
necessarily want to see it.
It's not the end of the world if we hear/see the words , just that
sometimes we would rather not.

snip

Sure. After hearing them all day long, I certainly have no wish to converse
with people here and read more of the same. But I do think that direct quotes,
at least, should remain pure, even in the course of more elevated discourse.
There is a vast difference between that, and routine and repetitive use of such
words when others are available. See my replies to Ed and others.

Guy

Mark and Kim Smith wrote:

Same same with 'g_d', 'G_d' and 'god'. My Baptist roots go way
back; if you have to use his name in vain - at least spell it
correctly.

By which you mean YHWH, right?