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Our sensitivity about 'curse' words has changed with the times
Deseret News ^ | Saturday, September 6, 2003 | Elaine Jarvik

Posted on 09/06/2003 7:20:53 AM PDT by ChemistCat

Pardon our French, as people used to say back in the days when they didn't use the following words quite so often, but we're going to now talk about the phrases "pissed off" and "that sucks." Are these dirty words? Or just words? And what about those other words, the ones that are still taboo enough to require dashes or abbreviations in newspapers such as this one? The s-word. The f-word. The f-word used as the all-purpose adjective. High-school teachers will tell you the halls are full of these words. As for "pissed off" — students say it so often "they're unaware they even say it," Highland High chemistry teacher Monica French says. Expletives made headlines last month when the Grove Theater in Pleasant Grove canceled its production of Neil Simon's "Rumors" after the playwright refused to let the theater delete language it thought its audience would find offensive — "a lot of G-D and Jesus Christs," explains theater co-owner Gayliene Omary, plus "the f-word used very casually." Acoustically speaking, words are just a series of hisses, pops and clicks. " 'Bad' words only have an effect if people think they're bad," says Marianna Di Paolo, chairwoman of the University of Utah Department of Linguistics. "Words are harmful if a culture regards them as harmful. Words become taboo because the culture associates taboo things with them. In Victorian times, the word "leg" was considered risque, Di Paolo explains. At the dinner table, it wasn't acceptable to ask for a leg or a thigh of chicken, which is why people started using the term "dark meat." (People also put skirts on tables and beds, so the furniture legs wouldn't show.) Within our own cultural memory, the word "pregnant" was forbidden on "I Love Lucy" in the early 1950s. Our sensitivity about words changes over time. Linguists call that "cognitive dialectology," says Rodolfo Celis, a linguist at Arcadia University. A word like "pissed" or "sucks," for example, might be considered crass and therefore inappropriate in "polite company." Then it starts seeping into more general usage, until finally there's a tipping point, Celis says, in which the word has become so mainstream that the people who still don't use it — often the older generation — start complaining that language has become coarser. Eventually, though, a word that once could get your mouth washed out with soap will be regarded as just a word. Does that mean we've become desensitized and crass? More desensitized but also less neurotic about bodily functions and sex? Have the words simply become sounds, devoid of any reference to something taboo? " 'Suck' is one that I am personally struggling with," says Celis, "as I perceive that it is shifting. When things are shifting there are some dangerous points of ambiguity." So recently, while teaching his freshman English composition class, in what he describes as "a lame attempt at inter-group affiliation," he said to his students: "I know some of these chapters kind of suck in the sense of exciting reading." The word sounded vulgar to his own ears, Celis admits. "But I genuinely think it is an almost neutral adjective for many freshmen."

Taboos evolve Playwright Neil Simon's lawyer told Grove Theatre co-owner Gayliene Omary that "educated people" can handle the f-word, and that Utahns need to become desensitized. That got Omary thinking. "Maybe he's saying that educated people don't let these words have power. Maybe we give these words more power than they deserve." But Omary doesn't agree. If a person becomes desensitized to the f-word, she says, it means becoming desensitized to the disrespect she believes it embodies. Robert Thompson, professor of media and culture at Syracuse University, recently heard a young Presbyterian pastor use the word "crap" from the pulpit. Thompson guesses the pastor didn't realize that the word once referred exclusively to excrement. The media didn't teach Americans to swear, Thompson notes. But what "The Sopranos," Ozzy Osbourne and countless movies have done is "domesticate" words that once were limited to fenced-off areas of social discourse — behind the barn, in bars, on ships full of proverbial sailors. On Thompson's campus, walking across the quad, he'll hear students sprinkling the f-word throughout their conversations — which makes him wonder if, by the time these students are grandparents, the f-word will shock anyone at all. "It took centuries for the f-word to acquire the taboo that it holds; it'll take only a generation to completely wear it out," Thompson predicts. And then what? "We're wearing these things out very quickly, and you can't just make these things up. An entire culture has to agree that a word means something, that it has an aura and a gravitas, and that takes generations." Cuss words are not a renewable resource, he says. The good news is that "the only reason this stuff outrages anyone is because we've all agreed it deserves outrage," Thompson argues. The bad news, he says, is that a culture needs its curses. His theory is that the reason road rage has escalated is that the use of the middle finger as a non-verbal curse has become so casual. "It used to be so forbidden and taboo. So if you used it, you felt you'd gotten your revenge." Now, because it's lost some of its power, "you have to go elsewhere for revenge."

Violence rehearsal Salt Lake psychologist Lynn Johnson disagrees, seeing swearing not as an alternative to violence but a "rehearsal for real violence," a way of training the brain at being irritable and aggressive. As for vulgar language, "Can you imagine Mother Teresa saying, 'Hey, that really sucks, I am so pissed off,' "Johnson asks. Often it's not the words themselves, it's the tone in which the words are uttered that's damaging, to both the listener and the speaker, says Jim O'Connor of Lake Forest, Ill., who five years ago founded the Cuss Control Academy. O'Connor's list of reasons swearing "imposes a personal penalty" includes: "It makes you unpleasant to be with; it endangers your relationships; it's a tool for whiners and complainers, . . . it shows you don't have control." Swearing also represents the dumbing down of America, O'Connor says, and it lacks imagination. Despite his campaign, and hundreds of interviews on TV, radio and in print, O'Connor reports that America as a whole is swearing more than ever. On an individual basis, though, people tell him he's helped them clean up their acts. His own daughter, who once was "quite foul-mouthed," stopped swearing cold-turkey three years ago, at age 24. "She became a Mormon and stopped swearing," O'Connor says. "Most of the people I know who really stopped swearing, who stopped completely, did it because of religion." The Bible is clear in its admonition about taking the Lord's name in vain. As for vulgar language, preachers sometimes refer to passages such as Ephesians 4:29, translated in various versions as "let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth" or "let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth." "Swearing is a venial sin, and a venial sin weakens charity," argues Dan John, director of religious education for the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City. Foul language "weakens the layers of community," he says. If no one is offended, "that's a sign that the bonds of community are being weakened. If you're not offended by offensive things, then we have a problem." Are there exceptions —for example, solitary swearing? "I'd hate to go to hell and find out I'm there on a stubbed-toe violation," John says.

Stub-toe swearing Stub-toe swearing comes from a different part of the brain than normal speech, scientists say. Washington University theoretical neurobiologist William H. Calvin, author of "A Brain for All Seasons," explains that "emphatic exclamations of all sorts seem to be coming from the supplementary motor area, in the midline of the brain above the corpus callosum. That's also true of many animal vocalizations." What Calvin calls "novel strings of words — our short and long sentences" are created in a different part of the brain. "People can have strokes that disrupt novel sorts of language (i.e. aphasia) while still being able to swear like sailors. It can be very distressing to their families." Calvin said he doesn't know if anyone has studied whether someone who tries to use faux swear words would utter the more forbidden f-word following a stroke, or whether "fetch" would still be satisfying enough.


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: cussing; language; profanity; swearing
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To: winker
Rules of etiquette mean nothing to cretins!

The drovers of the American west cattle drives in the 19th century would heartily agree with you if anyone should refer to them as "cowboys".

"Talk low, talk slow, and don't say too much."
John Wayne

41 posted on 09/06/2003 5:09:03 PM PDT by Mushinronshasan
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To: dhuffman@awod.com
To what do you (or they) think 'suck' refers?

That's a good question. When I grew up (1970s), the word was the worst possible for my parents. You didn't say it. Other words weren't as much a problem, because they weren't used as much. We were just starting to separate "suck" from its implied sexual meaning, and we were starting to say it in normal conversation. For my parents, that's all it meant. For my kids now, it means "bad," and no more.

My parents used "son of a gun." They didn't know what it meant.

42 posted on 09/07/2003 12:02:19 AM PDT by nicollo
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To: Major_Risktaker
It's a term commonly used by teens and young adults. IMO, it is a slightly disparaging comment that says that something is very lame.

In some places, saying that something is "so gay" is so five minutes ago.

43 posted on 09/07/2003 2:02:25 AM PDT by Eagle Eye (There ought to be a law against excessive legislation.)
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To: nicollo
So now we're down to 'mean people suck' meaning nothing, because those displaying the aphorism don't understand it, or meaning 'the hoi polloi indulge in oral intercourse'. Quite a wide range of non-meaning between the significant ends.
44 posted on 09/07/2003 4:27:28 AM PDT by dhuffman@awod.com (The conspiracy of ignorance masquerades as common sense.)
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To: dhuffman@awod.com
I'll never forget the admonition of my professor of "Speech" (an unfortunate replacement for "Rhetoric") at the use of the verb "quote" as a noun by one of the students:
"When a word loses its specificity it loses its meaning."
My 1958 Webster's lists "quote" as a noun only as a colloquialism. My 1967 Random House dictionary gives it full "noun" status. Anybody use the word "quotation" any more? A piece of the language died.

You complain that "suck" no longer means its meaning. Having been removed of it, it is no longer an epithet. So if "mean people suck," so what? (I know a couple nice people that do that, too.)

45 posted on 09/07/2003 9:38:08 AM PDT by nicollo
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To: nicollo
I don't know what is the significance of the bumpersticker. I am 'mean' by two of the uses of the word and enjoy oral hetero-intercourse. Are they trying to disparage or insult me? Do I give them the five-fingered wave and let them decide its meaning?

Or do I draw my sidearm, an armed society being a polite society?
46 posted on 09/07/2003 10:19:11 AM PDT by dhuffman@awod.com (The conspiracy of ignorance masquerades as common sense.)
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To: dhuffman@awod.com
Lol!
47 posted on 09/07/2003 11:07:31 AM PDT by nicollo
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To: stuartcr
Cursing a person in the old times affected only the cursee. Cursing in a movie affects MILLIONS upon MILLIONS. Like comparing a firecracker to an H bomb.
48 posted on 09/07/2003 4:06:46 PM PDT by Uncle George
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To: stuartcr
Aren't they all really just words?

Every ancient culture attributed magical powers to words. The Bible tells of God 'speaking' the world into existence. Pagans believe that words can cast spells. And system programmers still worship at the command-line prompt.

49 posted on 09/07/2003 4:12:24 PM PDT by JoeSchem (Which way is Arnold's political weather vane pointing today?)
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To: ChemistCat
Our sensitivity about 'curse' words has changed with the times

So much so that barely anyone is even aware of what a curse is. For instance, calling Clinton an SOB is not an example of cursing; but stating "May his member shrivel and fall off" is.
50 posted on 09/07/2003 4:15:54 PM PDT by aruanan
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To: ChemistCat
Put me in the stubbed-toe-violation category. I'll be working on it!

You should have heard me when I reached for the vacuum line and hit the end of the 21 gauge needle in between my middle and ring fingers.
51 posted on 09/07/2003 4:20:13 PM PDT by aruanan
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To: joesnuffy
If a person becomes desensitized to the f-word, she says, it means becoming desensitized to the disrespect she believes it embodies.

Well, some of the "finest" people in society in 1700's England were known by their language. Someone speaking of a woman who was present at a public hanging said of her that she must have been a lady of distinction because of the robust nature of her cursing.
52 posted on 09/07/2003 4:25:01 PM PDT by aruanan
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To: dhuffman@awod.com
The topic and comments that I have so far read are symptoms of the decay of our language. Profanity takes the name in vain. Obscenity refers to bodily functions and 'I'll know it when I see it.' A vulgarity is merely 'common' speech. In every case offense, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder. In this day and age of hyperbolic speech, a good 'curse' cuts through a lot of PC bull shit.

Yes, it's too bad that so many are completely unable to make the distinctions, and yet they all think they have something to say. Someone once said that profanity is the crutch of the conversational cripple. Okay, well, perhaps it's better to have a crutch and actually get around than to be proud of being a cripple.
53 posted on 09/07/2003 4:30:20 PM PDT by aruanan
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To: aruanan
Ohhh, I love it! Egalitarianism would have us all cripples rather than all exceptional.
54 posted on 09/07/2003 5:47:32 PM PDT by dhuffman@awod.com (The conspiracy of ignorance masquerades as common sense.)
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To: aruanan
heh heh

Well, if I can't say it in church, I shouldn't be saying it anywhere. Suppose it'll work if I say "you know what" instead of "member"? Can't have too much euphemism in church.
55 posted on 09/07/2003 6:16:41 PM PDT by ChemistCat (Focused, Relentless Charity Beats Random Acts of Kindness.)
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To: ChemistCat
Well, if I can't say it in church, I shouldn't be saying it anywhere. Suppose it'll work if I say "you know what" instead of "member"? Can't have too much euphemism in church.

The apostle Paul, though, referred to what he had previously considered gain as crap and also said that he wished the circumcisers would just go ahead and cut the whole thing off.
56 posted on 09/07/2003 6:29:42 PM PDT by aruanan
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To: aruanan
Speaking as a woman, I'm kinda glad they don't! My husband would be WAY unfinished....
57 posted on 09/07/2003 6:31:16 PM PDT by ChemistCat (Focused, Relentless Charity Beats Random Acts of Kindness.)
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To: Uncle George
How does it affect people?
58 posted on 09/08/2003 7:32:15 AM PDT by stuartcr
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To: JoeSchem
Telling someone to 'go to ....' doesn't really send them there, just as telling someone to do something to themselves, doesn't make them do it.
59 posted on 09/08/2003 7:34:02 AM PDT by stuartcr
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To: ChemistCat
I hope not being too off-topic, but there are some curiosities about the way we brazilians use curse words that will add some information to this discussion.

First of all, I realize there's a very basic diference between the way we Portuguese speakers use bad-words from the way you English Speakers do. Our way of offending other people is ever, or almost ever, from a sexual poit of view, while in English (and in german too, I guess) there's a lot of reference to feces and excrements.
One example could be a sentence that I found quite often in movies : "Hey, kiss my a** !". I suppose the point in this statement is a kind of humiliation for the person who is to perform the kiss, in a part of the body so close to the feces or excrements. But here in Brazil the translators that work in the subtitles for the movies seem unconfortable with this, becouse for us, and our cultural sexual point of view, it sounds like a homosexual invitation, not as an offense at all.
Another example is to call somebody a "brown nose", here we'd call this kind of person a "puxa-saco" or a "balls-puller", from the most sexual point of view possible.

The only reference to excrements I can remember happens when something goes very wrong, like to hit a finger with a hammer, and most of us would shout "merda!", very like the french, that is "sh*t!". But we could hear also a lot of "Puta que pariu!", that is a kind of "whore that has gave birth to!" (gave birth to the hammer, in this case) or "que buceta!", (what a vagina!).

The teenagers from here use to curse all the time too, and the most commom is "a fuder!", (good to f**k), "do caralho!" or "bom pra cacete!" (from the pennis, or good to the pennis), all used as an adjective meaning "very good, or cool". They use a lot of "vai te fuder!" too, that is very like your "Go f**k yourself!". Also there's the "Aqui oh!"(here!), that is complemented by a gesture pointing to your own genitals, or the big finger of the hand, sugesting an invitation to the offended to perform felation with the ofender.

Living in a place with a lot of Italian imigration, we used to hear the older people use religious words and sentences to curse when they were really angry. It was common to hear somebody shouting "Puta Madonna!"(Whore Virgen Mary!), "Porco Dio!"(Pig God!), and some less profano like "Sacramento!"(Sacrament), "Ostia!"(Host, holy bread !). These statements were ever very, very loud and pronunced, in a good Italian fashion. Today even the younger use this way to curse, but in a quite "funny" way, just to mimic the tradition of olders.

This account just to the very south of Brazil, and I should say that we are one of the states that use these bad word the less. Even teens know they are being wrong when saying that close to the olders, or women, and most of them respect, or at least be quite embarrassed. More to the North, like Rio de Janeiro, the commom people is very offensive, IMO, and the streets and schools are much more "dirty" from the bad-speaking point o view.

While writing these lines, I realized that all these words don't have a real meaning, and the proof is that when making the tranlations, when we are obligated to consider the meaning, everything loses sense or sound very un-natural. I find that's why more and more people use these bad words, becouse they are becoming just sounds, quasi non-semantic sounds, that just express rage or anything else.

Forgive my eventual spell errors :)

Wozzeck
60 posted on 10/30/2003 6:49:23 PM PST by Wozzeck401
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