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How about we just stop censoring words in the first place.
by theelous3 4y ago
How about we just stop censoring words in the first place.
- waterpowder 4y agoFuck yes
- sph 4y agoFew words convey so much meaning, emotion and depth as expletives. Swear words are truly the peak of human language in my opinion. The absolute best are the ones in every languages that are so versatile. Like "fuck". One of these can replace whole sentences and still be as expressive.
- galangalalgol 4y agoI find that they are like a medicine, that if I use them for every ache pain or sniffle, they don't work as well when I truly need them. When I use an expletive I want people to understand I have exited my normal range of emotional intensity.
- z3c0 4y ago"Fucking" is the only English "infix" that I know of, where it can be inserted inside of words like "abso-fucking-lutely". The only other is "freaking", which is a just euphemism for the former. Edit: American English, I should say. The Brits have "bloody".
- InCityDreams 4y agoIME 'fucking' is used very often in words, considerably more than 'bloody' - in British Fucking English.
- mattkrause 4y agoThe linguistic “process” that allows this is called “expletive infixation” and it, as you might guess from the name, only works with swears. There’s some neat work on where within the original word you can add them, made all the funnier by hearing people dispassionately dropping strings of f-bombs “to see what works”. Here’s a classic paper on it: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1062&context=linguist_faculty_pubs https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...
- someweirdperson 4y ago> only works with swears It also works with "diddly" which isn't. It's intersting what information can be found out there in this world, even about something as diddly. https://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/wendell.kimper/hc-cs-talk.pdf https://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/wendell.kimper/...
- JasonFruit 4y agoThere's a song that goes, "Wouldn't it be loverly sittin' abso-bloomin'-lutely still?" Still just a euphemism, but an example that can be used with children who lack self-control with their language.
- withinboredom 4y agoI say back-asswords instead of ass backwards.
- sib 4y agoI've most commonly heard it said, "bass-ackward," in order to remove the "ass" as a standalone syllable...
- Brendinooo 4y agoI disagree, but I do think that if swear words weren’t verboten, you wouldn’t think that.
- KineticLensman 4y agoI once attended an experiment where soldiers were trialling a new CIS system. An officer asked how it was going. A soldier replied “the fucking thing is fucking fucked, sir”. It was a succinct statement aimed at a senior decision maker and the trial was halted ten minutes later.
- ddingus 4y agoProfanity is a part of speech and it has two forms: Lazy profanity, which also has low value, is the form where the majority of the value of the expression is carried by profane words. The not-lazy form, which has considerably higher value, is the form where profanity augments the primary value contained in the non profane elements of the expression. In my view, the not-lazy form is to be respected and preserved. Using the lazy form is most generally a disservice to the speaker, though not always. Context remains king!
- hanoz 4y agoI often find people expressing that sentiment mean only the words they happen to be cool with, and on examination say well obviously we should still censor those words.
- feanaro 4y agoI never find this. Isn't it quite weird to spend time thinking about which words should or should not be censored? How about we just leave people to speak their minds instead of slowly but surely meandering into newspeak?
- simonh 4y agoSome words have specifically pejorative or derogatory meanings, and if general swears are considered acceptable I'm afraid there are people who will exploit that for genuinely offensive purposes.
- CoastalCoder 4y agoJust for clarification: Do you mean "offensive" as in people's feelings, or as in the antonym of "defensive"?
- simonh 4y agoI mean people's feelings. See my reply to Brendinoo for my position on that in more detail.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Swizec 4y agoIs it less offensive to use the n-word with explicit intent to offend by saying “n-word” or by actually saying the word? I think it’s the same. ie: it’s not the word that’s the problem, it’s how you use it. To expand further: I think the obsession over words is the left’s version of thoughts and prayers. We would rather debate what something should or shouldn’t be called than fix the problem. Because it’s easier and feels like progress.
- wonderbore 4y agoThe US is too deep into this shit to go back now.
- adventured 4y agoDefinitely not. The US was highly censored when it comes to language until the 1990s. [1] We improved considerably, including in (and thanks to) not censoring the WWW when it exploded onto the scene in the 1990s. It can be done again, as there will be a massive cultural backlash against the hyper over-sensitive woke era. The pendulum always swings back aggressively. The new rebels are, once again, going to be those that are intellectually free, not self-censoring and not over-sensitive. The US is becoming primed for a new era of shock, and young people will eat it up when it happens, to rebel against the hyper sensitive status quo. [1] See: George Carlin and Howard Stern, and their running battles with abusive government censorship and cultural repression around language.
- voidfunc 4y agoNew era of shock cant happen soon enough.
- earth_walker 4y agoCareful what you wish for - in all likelihood when that backlash does come you and I and anyone old enough to be commenting here won't be in on the joke. We will be the ones the shock-jocks are trying to shock, as they goose-step through their live goetze show, calling for math to be abolished from the high school curriculum and for script-kiddie porn to be legalized. And their adoring fans will get together to vote in president R. Kelly for 2 terms.
- wonderbore 4y agoI hope it will happen, but the pendulum is going back so fast right now. Some old words are being more accepted now, but people are becoming more sensitive to whole topics and specific trigger words, even and especially young people.
- 4y ago
- natly 4y agoI feel the same way. But just want to point out that the link is actually satire and makes a push for the same side as yours.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- IshKebab 4y agoThis is obviously a joke.
- ttyprintk 4y agoI would argue this with: Should the existence of such a font mean, when fonts can be user-configured in a browser, that all subsentence censorship can be opt-in?
- simondotau 4y agoEveryday censoring is the spice which makes these words desirable to use in the first place.