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I wish we could talk about important ideas without using the word s--t, but I guess this marks me as a prude in our brave new world.
by erehweb 3y ago
I wish we could talk about important ideas without using the word s--t, but I guess this marks me as a prude in our brave new world.
- BitwiseFool 3y agoIt's attention grabbing for sure, but I feel like a more carefully chosen name would make the discussion and acceptance of the concept go a lot farther.
- gjsman-1000 3y agoIs it even attention grabbing anymore? Everyone I know from teenagers to 60-year-old county employees use it now. From my experience, the shock value is now minimal. Instead of shock value, it just makes me take whoever uses it less seriously because I mentally associate them with a high-school-level of maturity.
- wkat4242 3y agoYes especially people that say things like "chips" instead of "shit". I'm always like WTF are you 5??? I lived in a small town in Ireland for a while and I got that a lot here. Though go to the pub and the F-word would be interspersed twice in every sentence. I never really got that hypocrisy.
- jker 3y agoI too have been trying to think of a more civil version of this word lately. Entrashment? Crudification?
- vkou 3y agoIt carries a very different meaning from terms like 'Trash', 'Garbage', 'Rubbish', 'Tyre Pyre', and a singificantly-enough-different meaning from something like 'Cesspit' and 'Dump'.
- jzb 3y agoIMO it's a poor choice on Doctrow's part. Not because I have any real qualms about the use of the word, but because it's guaranteed to draw focus away from the real discussion. George Carlin talked about this quite a bit, though. People object to "bad" words but words that describe objectively worse things are fine. We can freely discuss killing, but we can't say "fuck" without people getting upset. Talk about companies doing objectively evil things, crickets. Use the word "shit" while doing so, and it's guaranteed to bring out the people who object to the language used rather than the things that are happening.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- gambiting 3y agoI never understood the self censorship on the internet. Why replace the letters in shit with dashes? I can sort of understand not spelling out the N word fully to not trigger aggressive filter sensors on some networks, but shit?
- brink 3y agoYou can call it self-censorship if you want, I call it defending dignity. Mastering yourself is a virtue, not a vice.
- gambiting 3y agoNo one is mastering anything by censoring themselves - and that's exactly what it is, you still used the word just replaced some letters with dashes. I'd honestly understand if someone said "I wish articles wouldn't use profanities in their titles" - then yes, I'm 100% onboard. But using the profanity, just with dashes instead of letters? It's performative, not dignified.
- DFHippie 3y agoIt's the use-mention distinction. Discussing the word shit and its effect on discourse is different from using it and achieving those effects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinctio...
- brink 3y agoI think the primary discussion is more about using the word "enshittening" over a word like "degeneration" than adding dashes.
- DFHippie 3y ago> I can sort of understand not spelling out the N word fully to not trigger aggressive filter sensors on some networks, but shit? Hopefully this isn't why you aren't avoiding the N word. Using the N word if you aren't black yourself indicates either that you are unaware of its history, you don't care about it, or you care about it precisely because it causes offense. And being unaware usually correlates with not caring. People naturally infer from this that your attitude towards black people falls somewhere in the range from "I don't think about their interests" to "I wish them harm". It amounts to declaring one's hostility. The milder end of this range still implies contempt. Communicating one's desire to offend is sufficient to cause offense. Everyone knows this. One can control one's own reaction to insults, but one cannot control the reactions of third parties who witness it. Everyone knows this as well. So claims that offended parties should just grow a thicker skin are disingenuous. This measure is insufficient to prevent all harm. So one should not say the N word not because of algorithms, but because you know in advance that it will cause harm. Saying shit is different. Except in particular contexts -- a conversation in a retirement community, say, or a preschool -- its use cannot be construed as an attempt to harm particular classes of people. Outside of these contexts those who take offense are generally understood to be mistaking the intention of the speaker.
- wkat4242 3y agoI think it's perfect as it is. It's catchy and really describes what's happening. Moreover, it really needs a word with at least a little bit of impact because the phenomenon is so bad. I've seen the word in business presentations and documents. Even the poo emoji (often alongside the "cow" one). It's not weird anymore. Language changes.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dangus 3y agoGreat news: if you don’t want to do that you don’t have to. Hopefully the word shit doesn’t jump and attack you like the bears that God sent to murder children. But anyway I’m glad my religious family told me not to use naughty words.
- BitwiseFool 3y agoI like curse words so much that I want to see them used sparingly, lest they lose their impact. There's definitely a time and place for vulgarity and those that use discretion when choosing to employ it get better results than those who don't.
- dangus 3y agoThe author of this article seemed to get great results. Check out all this engagement we are doing!
- falcolas 3y agoProfanity is (and importantly, always has been) an extra punctuation mark. It's an embellishment that draws people's attention; that makes something all the more memorable. Is it required? No. Is it unreasonably effective for the character count? Yes. And - as with most everything - folks will live a happier life ignoring profanity than trying to get the world to to stop swearing. Especially since swearing is so fucking fun.
- hot_gril 3y agoKinda ruins the fun when it's everywhere. I think the only time it was ever funny was those "I FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE" shirts, and that's only cause of unintended negative stereotypes for the wearer.
- jancsika 3y agoYour wish for no cursing along with your deed of refusing to spell out the word "shit" are textbook markers of prude behavior, in any world. Also-- not sure if this tracks with other people, but in real life I test "prude" for the pejorative sense by multiplying it by $self_awareness. If the result is nonzero I interpret it as a stricture that produces some kind of knowledge, e.g., someone choosing to live by a code. I'm not sure if that sticks with the spirit of the word, but that kind of person can certainly appear prude at first approximation. If the result is zero, I suddenly get hungry and must leave the conversation immediately to inspect the refreshment table.