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Avoidance Speech
- hgsgm 4y ago[flagged]
- ThrowawayTestr 4y ago[flagged]
- tut-urut-utut 4y agoPrimitive culture?
- dgacmu 4y agoWe're awfully strange and fascinating creatures, aren't we? Oddly, this is basically the same way I approach swearing with my kids: our position is that there is no such thing as a "bad" word but that they won't be able, as kids, to predict how adults will respond to the use of those words. Because some will react very badly, they should probably just not use them at all until they're older and more able to evaluate the social context. But they can say whatever they want in front of me.
- djbusby 4y agoAs long as they can spell it, they can say it.
- enobrev 4y agoSo no speaking until they learn to read? Series of grunts until school starts?
- 3np 4y agoWho said "if they can't spell it, they can't say it"?
- thomastjeffery 4y agoThat's the obvious implication.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- 3np 4y agoObviously not, given the apparent issue of their kids not speaking until elementary school.
- Izkata 4y agoMaybe better taken as a warning (to the parent) than permission (for the kid). When I was a kid I got mad at my brother and was going to call him a "dumbshit" or something like that, but halfway through the word I realized my mom was listening and tried to slur it into gibberish. The "shit" part came out as something like "shlut" and really shocked my mom - "where did you learn that word?" - and I had no idea what she was talking about. I'd never heard the word "slut" before.
- EvanAnderson 4y agoMy 3 y/o daughter asked her pre-school teacher what "F-U-C-K" spelled. I'd taken to spelling it rather than saying it, but it inadvertently became a spelling lesson.
- steve_adams_86 4y agoIt’s reassuring to read this; I take the exact same approach and reasoning with my kids. I haven’t met other parents who openly take this approach, but even so, my sense is that words are simply words. Intent and consequence are what truly matter and should be considered. Have kids look at it this way and they might be more critical of all language, not just a handful of words. Or so we can hope, haha.
- skrebbel 4y agoOh that's a nice idea, I'm gonna do that too!
- mfer 4y agoWhile I would agree there isn't a "bad" word there are phrases and words that have meaning in context. I try to teach my kids to know the context and to not tear others down. For example, I have friends I can call a b&%@h and it will be a good laugh. If I said that to many others it would be an insult. Learning that subtle nuance with kids takes some time and they have to develop to a certain level to get it. When kids are young and can't understand that level of context, yet, I have words they just aren't allowed to use. Just so they don't accidentally say something hurtful they don't mean to.
- portmanteur 4y agoMy brother's rule for his kids regarding swearing and other NSFW words is: "You'll probably hear adults use these words from time to time, but you can't repeat these words until you start paying taxes."
- mock-possum 4y agoSoooooo I’m guessing your nieces and nephews swear whenever they want, they’re just careful not to do it when dad is around to hear it. I tend to favour my friends’ policy about swearing with their kids: everybody feels differently about it, so you have to be careful about swearing around other people until you know whether it’s okay with them. At home? Probably fine. At school? Probably need to be more careful about it. It’s much more realistic to teach nuance than to outright forbid the behavior imo. ( Although I suppose we should probably acknowledge - 1) these are not our kids, and 2) every kid is different. Some kids appreciate the value of choosing your words to fit your audience, some adults never learned. )
- celu 4y agoExcept isn't them learning that there are certain people (like dad) to not swear around the whole goal?
- kevviiinn 4y agoI'm not sure which comment you're reading, but the person you're replying to is talking about their friend's policy which explicitly states that there exist some people who you probably shouldn't swear around. It just isn't dad
- celu 4y ago> Soooooo I’m guessing your nieces and nephews swear whenever they want, they’re just careful not to do it when dad is around to hear it. My point is this isn't even a bad thing. As long as they learn to not swear around certain people (like dad), then that's what you want
- me-vs-cat 4y agoWhen I was 8, my grandfather told me, "You can use swear words, but you will sound like a fucking idiot."
- jonah 4y agoOne time when I swore around my grandfather he said: "vulgarity is the poverty of language." It has stuck with me as a reminder that you should be able to express your thoughts on whatever is going on with wisdom and nuance. (IMHO, "bad words" are sometimes appropriate.)
- akiselev 4y agoThey’re the gaudy golden toilets of language. Sometimes it makes sense to emphasize just how ridiculously rich and powerful the king is, but usually they should have just gone with a boring porcelain shitter like everyone else.
- ilyt 4y agoWell, there is huge difference between using vulgar worlds to accentuate just how thoroughly fucked something is, and using them like a fucking inter-fucking punction every bloody third fucking word. First approach used sparingly is good, it expands range of expression without making communication longer, second, well, "poverty of language" is a good name for it.
- noelwelsh 4y agoIn the same vein, I've always loved this line that eloquently shows the difference between Australian and English attitudes to swearing: "OK, which of you bastards called this bastard a bastard?" (From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Jardine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Jardine)
- c22 4y agoWhenever my kids would swear I would ask them for a definition of the word. If they didn't have one I would suggest that it was perhaps unwise to use words whose meanings one did not know and leave it at that.
- thomastjeffery 4y agoThe general utility of swear words is that they don't. Natural Language is not explicitly constructed, no matter how confidently your favorite dictionary likes to pretend it to be. Natural Language is full of ambiguity, and we resolve that ambiguity with context. Noam Chomsky famously recognized this categorization as "context dependent grammar". In that same vein, he categorized what we write software in as "context free grammar". He then proved mathematically that we cannot write computer programs in context dependent grammar. Are you children computers or humans? Why should you constrain their language to a lower category?
- sonofhans 4y agoNice. I swore around my son flagrantly, and taught him to swear on purpose. One of his first five words was "fuck." One time when he was two, he came out of his bedroom in diapers late one night, saying, "God dammit, I forgot my fucking water bottle in the living room." Perhaps the funniest thing I've ever seen. But we also told him early on that swearing was like being naked -- there's nothing wrong with it, but it makes some people uncomfortable, so you should only do it in our home and only around family. It worked perfectly. He swore like a drunken sailor at home, and outside the house he would correct us if we ever swore. After a while swearing got boring for him, and as a teenager he doesn't do it much. My plan exactly, playing for the long term :)
- Toutouxc 4y agoI get the not-saying-someone's-name taboo, but why would anyone use a special word for a bunch of different lizards in front of their mother-in-law? Just... Why?
- rcthompson 4y agoFor all the technical details given in the Wikipedia article, it doesn't really explain what this is or what function it serves, does it?
- YPPH 4y agoTo be fair, it might not be possible for us to know why they did it with much certainty. My initial speculation was that it was a way of clearly avoiding any hint of flirtation or sexual interest (sort of like an extreme form of boundary-setting). This is suggested as a reason in relation to Australian Aboriginal languages the final paragraph of this article: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/world/what-in-the-world/avoidance-speech-mother-in-law-languages.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/world/what-in-the-world/a...
- flir 4y agoIs it possible this is an example? https://xkcd.com/2381/ https://xkcd.com/2381/ If so, "to name it is to call it" might be one possible "why".
- perryizgr8 4y agoYeah I read the whole thing and still didn't quite get it. It's almost like the article was written by someone trying to be meta about avoidance speech, trying to avoid explaining it in any clear manner.
- nerdbert 4y agoMaybe their mother-in-law's name starts with a key linguistic or sociological term that it can't be explained without using.
- ndsipa_pomu 4y agoOn the related "Minced Oath" page, I learned that "Gosh" is the minced version of "God". Also that "poppycock" comes from the Dutch for "soft dung" (pappe kak). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minced_oath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minced_oath
- petesergeant 4y agoIn Barbados, we used to say "cheese on toast" instead of "Jesus Christ" as kids. My parents still got mad at me.
- hprotagonist 4y ago“cheese and crackers”, “jezzum crow”, and others are variants on the idea. other fun minced oaths: “cor, blimey”, “zounds!”, “doggone”, “gadzooks”, and most other things that sound vaguely like they would belong in 1930s radio dramas.
- chrisweekly 4y ago"Jiminy Cricket" is another, right?
- hprotagonist 4y agoyes, which makes disney’s Pinocchio character a little bit, uh, on the nose.
- khazhoux 4y agoJeepers Creepers Sheesh (Jeesh)
- mock-possum 4y agoAh ‘poppycock’ I didn’t know that one - so it’s basically saying “that’s shit” which is a pretty familiar expression. I always thought ‘poppy cock’ sounded like it meant ‘ridiculous’ in a ‘flashy and silly’ kind of a way - but actually it means ‘worthless and revolting’ in a ‘ diarrhea’ sort of way
- Karawebnetwork 4y agoReminds me of Verlan from French: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verlan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verlan
- swayvil 4y agoWhat are some modern, western examples? Politically correct speech? Precision pronouns? "Person of color" is one striking contortion. My trans friend insists on the royal "we" and "they". It a linguistic reaction to an emotion. It's a kind of built-up language. It's got layers. Like Germanic agglutination, except in a different dimension. --- What, we can put the Australians and Africans under the microscope but not us?
- slicktux 4y agoI have an example for you: this is a story from a friend that worked in a baskin robins during high school…it was in “the hood” and a gentleman belonging to Blood gang ordered cookies and cream but like so; “boobies and bream”. See, being from the blood gang the gentleman would not use the letter C in their speech hence the absurd pronunciation of a common ice cream… Kinda hilarious and fascinating but it’s real…
- mock-possum 4y agoSounds about as ridiculous as ‘freedom fries’
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- evan_ 4y agoThe common thread in the Wikipedia article is that the words one uses change depending on whether you’re in the presence of a particular relation. If you use the term “person of color” only in the presence of people of color and you use a different word when they’re not around- that sounds like something else.
- swayvil 4y agoBoth are an attempt to smooth relations by avoiding certain linguistically-evoked emotions. Both do so by mangling the language.
- bitwize 4y agoWhen "we don't talk about Bruno" becomes specially encoded in your language.
- dec0dedab0de 4y agoTypically, there is an avoidance relationship between a man and his mother-in-law, usually between a woman and her father-in-law, and sometimes between any person and their same-sex parent-in-law. Whats up with this sentence? it reads like it's been rewritten multiple times to be more accurate, but someone dropped the ball along the way. Maybe it is meant as an example of avoidance speech in modern English?
- khochesh_kushat 4y agoI think it's just this: - Typically, there is an avoidance relationship between a man and his mother-in-law - usually, between a woman and her father-in-law - sometimes, between any person and their same-sex parent-in-law Agreed it is written a bit awkwardly.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- hunter2_ 4y agoYou need to move the first "between" into the first bullet point, lest the second and third points have "between" twice. Unrelated to the visual breakdown, there's also confusion (for me, at least) as to whether the first and second points have equal prominence, or if the second point should be of intermediate prominence; the word "usually" shouldn't be introduced except to slightly diminish, but I consider it to be a synonym of "typically"... are we to think the first is 90% and the second is 90%^2?
- khochesh_kushat 4y agoThanks, edited to move the between.
- hunter2_ 4y agoOops, maybe I wasn't clear, sorry! This is what I was going for... ### Typically, there is an avoidance relationship - between a man and his mother-in-law - usually between a woman and her father-in-law - sometimes between any person and their same-sex parent-in-law ### So the first point is simply typical, the second point is usually typical, and the third point is sometimes typical. The issue I have is not knowing whether the usually+typical construction is redundant or compounding.
- vrglvrglvrgl 4y ago[dead]
- rvba 4y agoA bit like FEDspeak https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedspeak https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedspeak
- mock-possum 4y agoWe humans are frustratingly obtuse. This sounds like the sort of thing that would drive me up the wall if it was present in my language. The systemic trope of “mother in law bad” alone is aggravating.
- pmichaud 4y agoIt's not about mothers in law being bad, it's social tech to regulate / suppress the relationship between men and their mothers in law, for whatever reason.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- flanked-evergl 4y ago> We humans are frustratingly obtuse. Painting with a rather broad brush there.
- xboxnolifes 4y agoThis reply is pretty obtuse.
- Tade0 4y agoThis is not visible in English where the (historically) formal "you" is the default, but in languages that have clear separation between familiar and formal ways of addressing someone, people tend to use impersonal forms when it isn't obvious how one would wish to be addressed - if I'm reading the definition correctly this is a form of avoidance speech. My SO uses it addressing my mother because a few years ago she asked about this and got the response that the formal term is preferred. In the meantime we became parents and it's becoming increasingly awkward.
- Sharlin 4y agoI don't think personal/formal (tu/vous) forms of addressing count as avoidance speech, and neither does the normal switching between casual and formal registers depending on who is addressed, because so many languages make that distinction, whereas according to the article, avoidance speech is a rare phenomenon. Even Japanese, which has an exceedingly complex system of reflecting social hierarchy in speech, doesn't seem to count has having it. Rather, the defining feature seems to be that avoidance speech reflects an actual and specific social taboo rather than a simple difference in status.
- antognini 4y agoA related naming taboo I recently came across has to do with bears. All across the northern hemisphere cultures had a special reverence for bears and tended not to refer to them directly (perhaps because naming it might make it appear). One of the examples of this is in the Old English name Beowulf, which literally translates to "bee-hunter," i.e., a bear. To this day in Germanic languages (English included), the word for "bear" derives from "brown," a bear just being "the brown one."
- crawfordcomeaux 4y agoSo does labeling things as "unacceptable" as a means of avoiding responsibility for one's trauma/untended grief/judgments count as avoidance language? I asked someone yesterday if, when labeling police killing people as being "unacceptable," they meant they reject the act and judge it as unacceptable. They got very angry over being asked this question and said yes, that was the case. I'm guessing acknowledging one's own judgments and/or having them pointed out is taboo in judgmental society?