swearing, namecalling, and other things that cause offence...

[Oryx Crake]

I was just thinking. I saw a post here not long ago by someone who was offended (I dont remember who, nor do I think it is important) by something another person said. In that case it was not so much a swearword as something else if memory serves but I do notice that people do sometimes take offence at swearing.

Now personally I would characterise my beliefs something like this: It is perfectly alright to be offended by swearing and derisive comments of a generalising fashion but that doesn't mean that there should automatically be censorship of such comments. But to the point, what do you think?

I just want to get peoples input on this as it interests me.

To use a quote: "I am offended by that. Well so ****ing what?!" - Stephen fry (The video the quote is from (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_osQvkeNRM))

Disclaimer:
Forum rules are of course not the issue here as that is less to do with free speech and more to do with the kind of atmosphere the forum owner wants on his/her forum and as such is subject not to the laws of free speech but to the rules that the administrator has set.

[rdmx]

There actually never used to be a swear filter on this forum, well before you joined. And you'd be suprised, there was very little swearing at all and the rarity meant swears actually carried weight.
Now with automatic censorship, people tend to throw them around like nothing.

[SaturnReturn]

Interesting.

I don't mind swearing, and it doesn't offend me as such. However, it does annoy me a little when people use it all the time when it's completely unnecessary. It annoys me when people do it all the time to make themselves feel bigger, or grown up, or something similar. It also annoys me if there are endless other options to say the same thing but someone chooses something with the potential to offend, simply because I find it needless, and therefore lazy. So I don't really get offended by expletives, but if someone just keeps swearing the whole time then I'll get bored with it, what they're saying will lose value, and I'll not consider the point they're trying to make in the first place. To me this seems like a good enough reason to not swear to the extreme, because one would assume the person is trying to communicate a message in the first place, and it's only going to be lost on a lot of people if every other word is an expletive. I also agree that it kind of devalues them when they are worth using.

I have no issues with being offended, but at the same time, it works both ways. If it's fine for me to be offended then it's fine for me to express that I was offended too. For so long I've worried about being offended simply because raising it might offend the other person. How crazy is that?

One thing that I can't quite decide about is the word 'gay'. A lot of people use this in a negative sense. A lot of people get annoyed at that. Yet I don't feel as against it as I do with other things. The reason for this is that it was originally a positive word. The meaning was given a different application and applied as a general term for homosexual. Now it's been given another meaning and applied as something such as 'annoying' or similar. I think when most people use it they're not really thinking of any homosexual angle and are just using it with the new meaning it has attained. So I won't complain at people when they do use it. I do, however, think the world would be better if people didn't use these kinds of terms when there are so many other words available that wouldn't offend anyone, so I try not to use them myself and am thinking it might be worth encouraging people not to use it here. It doesn't hurt to extend one's vocabulary.

So there's nothing wrong with the notion of being offended, but neither is there anything wrong with being considerate and using the intelligence we have to get our message across without instantly eliminating some proportion of the listeners.

[Oryx Crake]

@rdmx hahaha I try not to, not because I think it will offend but because as you say the less we swear the more wight it carries when we do.

but I do see your point.

in any case though I wasn't thinking so much about what goes on on this forum. rather I was thinking more of life outside this rather exclusive and wonderful club :)

@saturn interesting point of view, quite similar to mine in fact. as for words like Gay, CP(this one is mostly used in sweden I think, meaning cerebral paresis) and words that also refer to a certain group of people I tend to be more annoyed by people using those words than general swearing, no matter what slur it is... I think maybe because in my old upper elementary school (or junior high maybe.... year 7-9) there were people who'd use the word Negro as a swearword which made me extremely uneasy, and I got to thinking that why should it be ok to use some of these generalising slurs in such a way but not others?

[DjM1zw1z]

Well i got told swearing is a way to show that your are mad or you want to show that you are big and hard (even thought it doesnt work)

I dont mind swearing if they use it in a correct manor. I just hate it if they use it without knowing it actually means,
It Could also be used to describe something like this, "Look at that its f****** big". Sometimes it just shows what a lack of vocab some people have in this time and the only resort is to using swear words. But to me they are just words. Why they are bad, i dont know but every word has a meaning so why cant they be used correctly instead of them not.

[SaturnReturn]

The whole "they're just words" thing is interesting. I guess that's a good way to express my dislike of overly frequent use of swear words. For example, I would equally dislike it if someone said 'sausage' fives times a sentence. "That's sausage awesome, where the sausage can I get one of those sausaging sausagers". Yeah, that's pretty annoying too.:nod

[Oryx Crake]

hey sat are you, like me then also annoyed with the extreme overuse of the word 'like'?

"it was like... and I was like... and she was like... etc."

[DjM1zw1z]

There isnt many substituions for the word like thought.
While swearing can be a sub for many words.

@sat Lol The sausage idea is funny but it seems different because its a not a swear word but then again why are swear words -swear words

But the overuse of the word swear is funny

[SaturnReturn]

Yes, but I find myself doing that too sometimes and try to stop myself doing it. That's a part of the problem. Language, particularly English which is just so non-standard, evolves in a particular way based on common usage. I can't be annoyed at people using apostrophes wrongly any more, because I found out that a few decades ago, a plural would have had an apostrophe-s on the end, if it ended in a vowel, because the absence of the apostrophe was considered vulgar. However, I think language can evolve in a positive and negative way, and if the wonderful vastness of English is reduced to the point that we all sound the same, then this isn't the kind of evolution that I would personally like to see. Neither would I want to see it for any other language.

[MrSmadSmartAlex]

I do get irritated by people swearing every other word, but only in the same way I'd find it irritating if they kept saying some other word unnecessarily.
Swear words themselves don't offend me at all though. I actually find it very amusing that words exist in English for the purpose of being words that you're not meant to say.
So if somebody consciously swears every other word, it's funny, but if they do it without thinking, it's annoying. :D
I consider somebody's intent to offend to be what's offensive, rather than the specifics of what they're saying.

edit: Gah, you guys discussed what I was going to say before I typed and posted it!
@Saturn - I can forgive many punctuation, grammar and spelling errors, but misuse of the apostrophe for plural just drives me ****ing nuts! :bomb :lol

[MetaKraken]

Yeah, I never like swearing, for obvious reasons. I've also heard people who used swearing words in Spanish. I know what they mean, but I don't wanna translate it on what it really means. :P

[Aeroracer]

hahaha a thread about swearing...wheres kigo when you need him..im sure he would plenty of f***** c**** input here..:p

swearing for me is about when and why.the words mean nothing in themselves..sometimes its funny said in the right way other times its vulgar at worse.sometimes its upsetting.sometimes you dont even notice it.



i get more offended by political correctness than any swearword could possibly do

politcal correctness is fascism and nazi like where a group of dumb chimps decide what we can think or say like....

the coloured person or the ic1...
or the verticaly challenged person

you basically would lose your job if you called a irish person a paddy even if you were irish yourself.

[Colonel]

Personally some of my favourite words are swear words. They're phonetically pleasing, sometimes downright funny, and can succinctly describe things where non-vulgar words just fall flat. Take the C word for example, cracking word and it'd be a shame if it was somehow rid from the dictionary.

It's all a matter of context, when I'm with my friends I swear a lot. I don't fear the words will lose their impact because they're part of a wider vocabulary.

On the other hand many people are offended by swearing, and its the responsibility of anyone in their right mind to refrain from wandering into Asda and asking for a pint of f*cking milk and a big b*stard chicken.

[yeldar2097]

I'd literally rofl for several days if I heard someone doing that :lol
+1 for the northerners ^_^

I'm guilty of swearing too much and generally debasing the English language so other than that I won't comment :+

[Oryx Crake]

ah! many interesting points of view, and I agree with yeldar I'd be rofling too.

But something jasmin said about peecee-... well assholes to be perfectly honest. Anyway that got me thinking. The one thing in these last few months that I've heard that really annoyed me (I really haven't run into any racists or homophobes which is a good thing) was the pc-version of cee-lo's song "**** you", which was censored for the radio and became "forget you". I couldn't tell you exactly what about it that annoys me so much but it really really annoys me!

[KGB]

The best swear word in a film ever. I didn't think Americans even used it before I saw this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv4JkBjthNk&feature=related

What else could you say.

[infoxicated]

I read the Kick-Ass digital comic when the movie had just been released, and when Hit Girl says the C word I thought "there is no way on Earth that makes it into the movie!", but sure enough they kept it.

Having a 10 year old girl swear is somehow wildly amusing to me - I have no idea why, as South Park has surely dulled that shock value over the past decade or so.

My own little girl, recently 5, knows that swearing is bad and she knows of the words she's not allowed to say. A few months back she dropped a toy, performed a face-palm and said "Bollocks!"

You're meant to scold them with a straight face for that, but I almost sprained my pancreas laughing! :D

So in some cases swearing is funny, especially with some comedic timing and when it's not expected (IndyCar driver Buddy Lazier demonstrating a profanity blurt (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vQMxHvQKuU&feature=player_embedded)), although, as others have said, when it's used for punctuation or to fill gaps in a sentence it's just not big or clever.

[F.E.I.S.A.R]

Video game with MOST F-words -House if the Dead:Overkill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_the_Dead_Overkill)One F-word a minute(or more).

[SaturnReturn]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv4JkBjthNk&feature=related

What else could you say.

How about, "O....M....G....I've, like, totally seen that girl somewhere before".

See attachment for what I'm on about.

[Hellfire_WZ]

I remember listening to this with my dad when I was a lot younger, and it still creases me up to this day. Swearing as performed by the two masters - Peter Cook and Dudley Moore :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuiVFwgAkWk

As for swearing itself, well you know me from my videos ;) But that's usually me riled up, I'm far more sedate than that normally. Can't say it's ever really offended me but I can definitely understand when people are irritated by a constant stream of swearing in a sentence, especialy when it's really not necessary.

[Dark_Phantom_89]

Video game with MOST F-words -House if the Dead:Overkill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_the_Dead_Overkill)One F-word a minute(or more).

Nope, it's this one. ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb6pMDmbXDY

I laughed so much when I saw this. I've played Mafia 2 but never realised how much swearing was in it until I saw this.

[DrMannevond]

Anyone seen Deadwood?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpsKKPuTYCI

And the best part :
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=cocksucker&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=5&smoothing=0

:D

[Aeroracer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsbwdd2Sar8

after watching this i understood why SL never bothered fixing voice chat... 2.06 get really retarded..

[Oryx Crake]

wow what a keyboard warrior! and I think I probably figured out just now why I've been staying away from the more rage inducing online games.

[Jav]

Lol random, but this is the best vid I've ever seen :lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMa2jRLaCHQ&feature=related

[Nutcase:259]

Is that for real? really? I'm worried for the human race :lol

Why is it that COD attracts all the douches :lol