posted
I think the objection was to referring to the whole woman that way, as though she were nothing more than her sex organs.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
You can use words for the male genatalia as a disparaging term for a man, and yet it is not considered nearly as crude as the "C" word. I wonder why.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
I think it is a carry over from the old worldview of women being treated with respect due to their sex. It was teh view that an offence to a woman was far worse than one to a man, as at that time they were less capable of dealing with those type of offences.
posted
I remember asking my father about the meaning of "Ah yu, Syung Sailu, Tau Tzi-bai la" (or something like that). He said:
"Ah yu" - oh no; "Syung Sailu" - hope you die; "Tau" - stinking; "Tzi-bai" is a very bad word, and "la" is an ending.
When I eventually got the meaning of "Tzi-bai" out of his lips, he didn't defin it as a "vagina" or even as a "p*ss*", he just said what Chaucer wrote as "quainte". Why use that? God knows.
Posts: 358 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
The most offensive langauge to me is French.
But on a more serious note, the "C" word is one of the few words I won't say except in times of extreme emotional displeasure. I really really hate that word =( It has an emotional charge that's not there with other anatomical words and it's not so over used as to take that punch away.
Someone called me a "rug muncher" in college. Now I'd been called a LOT of names, many of them with the same implications but none of them really hurt. But it was the first time I'd ever been called that particular epitath and I actually had to turn away to keep from crying. Yes, I know I'm overly emotional, but it stung. It was new and vulgar and it took me by surprise. The next time someone called me that I laughed. It had lost it's punch.
quote:The most offensive langauge to me is French.
I know absolutely nothing about French, but from the little I don't know, it almost seems as though it is a language designed to be mis-pronounced by non French speakers.
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posted
Saying that offensive words are just words is a rather hasty denial of the power of language in our thoughts and culture. Saying that you should be able to use them whenever you want because they're just words effectively removes you from the cultural contexts that you really couldn't function without.
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quote:No, it's not the same. It's a parallel. And it fits.
Not it doesn't. It would be a parallel for trying to understand why bad words are called bad words. But it doesn't work since I was making of point of why they are bad words, not why they are called bad words.
quote:Saying that offensive words are just words is a rather hasty denial of the power of language in our thoughts and culture. Saying that you should be able to use them whenever you want because they're just words effectively removes you from the cultural contexts that you really couldn't function without.
EDIT: Bah read that one wrong.
I'm managing to function pretty well, despite thinking they should be used whenever.
Posts: 3564 | Registered: Sep 2001
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Why is any word a vulgar word? Because it is a word that is understood to be vulgar. There's no other reason.
And all language works that way. Words mean what they mean because of our shared understanding of what they mean.
Take the word "incredible" for example. If you look at the word, what it looks like it should mean is not-credible, or unbelievable.
But it doesn't mean that -- it means "amazing". Why? Because that's how people use it, and that's what we understand it to mean.
Likewise, any word can become a vulgar word if people start using it in a vulgar way. When it is understood that the word represents something ugly, it will become an ugly word.
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posted
I believe excessive vulgarity makes you a liability that the rest of your society has to absorb. Purely from a linguistic standpoint.
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quote:I'm managing to function pretty well, despite thinking they should be used whenever.
Even though you think you should be able to use any word at any time, you are smart enough to not do so, as evidenced by your language on this forum. Otherwise, you probably wouldn't last very long here.
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quote:If I called you a sliding chair, and let you know I meant it a vulgar offence, would you take it that way?
Of course. It's usually a good idea to take any statement as it was intended. If you intend the word to be an insult, it's only natural for me to take it as an insult.
A good example of this is how the word "liberal" has been demonized by the right. They've done such a good job that it's almost impossible to use the word "liberal" as it used to mean without writing at least a paragraph explaining that when you use the word liberal, what you really mean is....
quote:Would you take it the same way as If a called you a f888ing b88888d?
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: I know absolutely nothing about French, but from the little I don't know, it almost seems as though it is a language designed to be mis-pronounced by non French speakers.
I think this is even more true of English and I have heard quite often that English is one of the most difficult languages to learn.
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posted
Bah, I'm not bothered starting this again, we never finished it last time anyway. And I believe I had the last point on that one so nyah. (That's if you are AntiCool... I think you are...)
Posts: 3564 | Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
I once had some friends who worked as correctional officers in a maximum security prison. Whether because they heard it from inmates all day long or for whatever reason, they all swore almost constantly. Because of this, they had no strong language available to them at all. They used the very worst vulgarities with such casual ease that if they ever wanted to say something bad, there was simply nothing left. It struck me that they had defeated the purpose of profanity entirely.
Another thing I notice about profanity is that it's extremely common among middle school kids. Odd that the very things middle schoolers do, (in an effort to seem grown up?) like swearing or smoking, actually tend to mark them strongly as juveniles.
In my work I'm around laborers a good bit, at varying degrees of skill level, from millwrights, electricians, and instrumentation techs, to unskilled laborers. It seems to be true that the lower echelons of pay scale tend to use more profanity, as well. There's a pretty strong correlation, just to casual observation, although there are definitely exceptions at all levels.
Maybe what use of profanity actually indicates is a lack of connection with the community, society, or the social order. Maybe it shows a sense that the people in question do not feel themselves to be part of the community as a whole, so that there's no need for respect to be paid to others in the group. That's a common thread, certainly, among prison inmates and middle schoolers, the other large demographics of faithful devotees to profanity. I wonder if that theory holds up under scrutiny.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
I think casual use of profanity shows you need a good thesaurus. I'm not talking about the occasional "Aw, s**t", when you stub your toe, but every other word being a swear word, or using profanity and slurs against others.
And yes, I find the 'C' word to be highly offensive, for the previously noted "reduces a woman to her genetalia reason". Usually, this implies she is to used.
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posted
I never felt the "C" word as a particularly offensive one. Sure, it's too obscene for pornsites, but I just don't feel the power of it as, say, the "F" word.
It's just sensation...
Posts: 358 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Too me, "curse" words are really not offensive, and I really can't understand why they are to anybody. I do get mildly shocked if I hear a young child use these words, but in an amused sort of way. Unless you are offended by the very concept of sex, defecation, or the anus, I am clueless as to how hearing those words would bother you, especially when religion is invoked as a reason for taking offense.
Racial and gender slurs are different, because they refer to a legacy of oppression and suffering, though being a white male myself they really don't bother me.
I would only take offense from those words if they were used in an insult directed at me, in which case the words themselves would not be the offense.
Posts: 151 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Another thing I notice about profanity is that it's extremely common among middle school kids. Odd that the very things middle schoolers do, (in an effort to seem grown up?) like swearing or smoking, actually tend to mark them strongly as juveniles.
In my work I'm around laborers a good bit, at varying degrees of skill level, from millwrights, electricians, and instrumentation techs, to unskilled laborers. It seems to be true that the lower echelons of pay scale tend to use more profanity, as well. There's a pretty strong correlation, just to casual observation, although there are definitely exceptions at all levels.
Maybe what use of profanity actually indicates is a lack of connection with the community, society, or the social order. Maybe it shows a sense that the people in question do not feel themselves to be part of the community as a whole, so that there's no need for respect to be paid to others in the group. That's a common thread, certainly, among prison inmates and middle schoolers, the other large demographics of faithful devotees to profanity. I wonder if that theory holds up under scrutiny.
Alternately, another way you could read into that correlation is that people at the upper levels of society consider themselves too good for the words. Instead of reading swear word use as disconnection from society, you could read refusal to use them causually as the disconnection. Becuase actually, the lower echelons as you called them often make up 60% - 80% of society. And swear word use is pervasive through american society. Also, like banter they are often used as a form of comradery, and not insulting at all to the others in the group.
quote:A good example of this is how the word "liberal" has been demonized by the right. They've done such a good job that it's almost impossible to use the word "liberal" as it used to mean without writing at least a paragraph explaining that when you use the word liberal, what you really mean is....
Its only demonized to the extent you let it be. I proudly say that I am 'very liberal' all the time. To just about anyone, with out using a paragraph to explain it. The right has only demonized the word to those who listen to them and agree with them. To the rest of us, we tend to ignore those idiots, cause to us 'conservative' is just as vulgar Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Curse words are used, and over-used, for emphasis. Until I came here, I thought myself quite liberal on language; then I met people who would say "f*cking" where I would say "moderately". Now, I'm not shocked by this; but I do find it rather exhausting. It is tiring to constantly, in the MIDDLE of quite ordinary sentences, be JERKED into full awareness by an emphasis-WORD. Little spikes of adrenaline, all through a conversation - nothing very noticeable, of course, just a subtle effect, with the other guy constantly saying "This is important to me, pay attention." Over the course of several hours it gets to be very, very annoying.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote: Another thing I notice about profanity is that it's extremely common among middle school kids. Odd that the very things middle schoolers do, (in an effort to seem grown up?) like swearing or smoking, actually tend to mark them strongly as juveniles.
As a "middle school kid" myself, I realize that it does often seem like an attempt to sound grown up, because, those that use vulgar laungauge for teasing other kids, usually are trying to be grown up, or have an inferiority complex, which is what most bullying spawns from.
However, in my opinion, most children that swear are only imitating behaviors learned from adults, and those adults that swore around their children, unintentinouly of course, showed them that they were words for adults only, and during the boost of hormones that causes the dreaded "rebelious faze" children integrate them into their normal speech, using them as casually as they use "dang" and "shoot" while adults are present.
In my vision, the only way to stop children from using curse words, thus making the adults they will turn into use the words less frequently, is to make the adults stop using them, making the children use them less frequently................. and the circle continues. Since that method is virtually impossible without mass brainwashing, the only other alternative is to stress that our children use our generations curse words, and make all of the adults use the words that are supposed to fill in for those.
But *sighs* this would only be a temporary fix, and as the generation that apreciates the children not swearing when they became adults dwindles off, the point would become moot, because then the non-curse words would become the curse words of the future I confused myself while writing this, I just let it fly from my fingers. Hope someone grasps a concept from this.
Posts: 34 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:However, in my opinion, most children that swear are only imitating behaviors learned from adults
I was a casual swearer in my youth, and I didn't learn it from adults. I had no adults in my life who swore.
edit: That's not true. I had some coaches as teachers who swore. But still -- I didn't pick it up from them. I was imitating my peers.
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It struck me that they had defeated the purpose of profanity entirely.![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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I confused myself while writing this, I just let it fly from my fingers. Hope someone grasps a concept from this.
