Offensive Language

[bill_g]

Foggy said:
"You don't need profanity or racial slurs to write offensive language. I could write offensive language all day long without either. But let's not."

Still that sounds like a great concept for a competitive event thread. A kind of 'Can you top this . . .' thread.

A your mama throw down?

[bill_g]

Fire Water Burn

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

NO!!! to your mama throw downs. That's like the mama dying in all the Disney cartoons and fairy tales. Thank goodness Disney made The Lion King and the daddy died.

The mama dying didn't bother me until I had Firstborn Son. Then it bothered me a lot.

We can still have a Cursing Contest. I have visions of an epic poem written about the contest a la Casey at the Bat or The Cremation of Sam McGee.

[neonzx]

Oy! Cleanup on isle 5.

[Patagoniagirl]

We can joke and rib about offensive language all we want. And there are places some of us use these words. The bottom line is that if we know that a word is hurtful to someone, and we respect that person, we should generally avoid using it.

I'm a woman, or so I was told. And there are things that have happened to my own over generations that have been minimized and laughed off. And frankly, a lot of that shit ain't funny. Its harmful and demoralizing. I learned to cuss and laugh along with the best of the guys in the Army. I apologize to my own.

I still swear. But when I know that someone finds that hurtful and offensive, AND I RESPECT THEM, I dont swear.

Gregg apologized. I accept that, and I think it was an honest apology. And iffin our Supreme Dick-Tator was offended, I wouldn't call him that.

[neonzx]

We can joke and rib about offensive language all we want. And there are places some of us use these words. The bottom line is that if we know that a word is hurtful to someone, and we respect that person, we should generally avoid using it.

Agree.

Gregg apologized. I accept that, and I think it was an honest apology. And iffin our Supreme Dick-Tator was offended, I wouldn't call him that.

Agree.

[Danraft]

And I think that's pretty much it... Be aware, but context and intent matter. This may be one of the less "diverse" groups I interact with, but it's not a monoculture and that should never be the desired endpoint.

This week's New Yorker has a scary article which is a first person account of dealing with the "culture police" in current China titled "Ghost Walls." It will take any desire for strict rules down a peg or two.

As to a "contest" of offensiveness, having done those in the format of a weekly "top ten" list with a very diverse work group... Be careful what you ask for because those were some of the most vile lists evah and would indeed be an undesired cesspool ( in other words,"no")...

Signed, an honorary aesthetic-proctologist...

[somerset]

As someone raised bilingual in Ireland, my swear words are not your swear words.
Québecers use religion-related words - calice, tabernac, sacrement, hostis - chalice, tabernacle, sacrament, host.
Completely inoffensive in English, they may be strung into a rosary of inflammatory invective that peels paint from walls, sours milk and puts the child in the cradle crying. Mon ostis de calisse de tabernac de saint sacrement!
Urdu may be the best language for swearing - but mostly sexual and involving camels.
Language is a delicate dance and as a neophyte in the US and having lived among Cockneys, I appreciate the abhorrence of a word equating someone to female genitalia casually tossed.
Best learn to swear in some language nobody will understand.

Thalla is cagainn bruis!

I once said "F#$k You" in Hokkien* to someone here. He seemed to get really offended

*Hokkien is a Chinese dialect favoured by Singaporean taxi drivers, in large part I think because it's the best one for swearing. The "FU" phrase above involves body parts, odour and parentage.

[roadscholar]

OK, no need to re-enact “The Aristocrats” joke here.

[jcolvin2]

I once said "F#$k You" in Hokkien* to someone here. He seemed to get really offended

*Hokkien is a Chinese dialect favoured by Singaporean taxi drivers, in large part I think because it's the best one for swearing. The "FU" phrase above involves body parts, odour and parentage.

My ex-wife’s grandparents were from Taiwan and spoke Minnanhua (Hokkien) and Japanese among themselves. They spoke Mandarin to me, and were super polite. They never taught me any swear words, although they did teach me how to play Mah Johng using Minnanhua.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/matt-da ... 57224.html

Matt Damon apparently didn’t understand the problem with the anti-gay ‘f-slur’ until recently. Here’s a lesson.

Matt Damon’s casual admittance in a new Sunday Times interview that he’s only recently “retired” his use of the derogatory “f-slur” about gay men, thanks to being called out by his daughter, has naturally brought out a slew of criticism and incredulity on social media.

In the story, Damon noted, “The word that my daughter calls the ‘f-slur for a homosexual’ was commonly used when I was a kid, with a different application,” Damon told the U.K. newspaper. “I made a joke, months ago, and got a treatise from my daughter. She left the table. I said, ‘Come on, that’s a joke! I say it in the movie Stuck on You!’ She went to her room and wrote a very long, beautiful treatise on how that word is dangerous. I said, ‘I retire the f-slur!’ I understood.”

And Twitter went wild!

Mrs. Betty Bowers
@BettyBowers

I’ve lost some respect for Matt Damon for two reasons:

1. Being a 51-year-old Harvard-educated person who only realized using homophobic slurs was a bad thing *months* ago; and

2. Being foolish enough to think that was a cute story he should share with the world.

[Foggy]

But the f-slur is still OK on Fogbow, because I got a little pushback from one of our gay members when I tried to include it on the banlist.

As a straight white senior male ( worst of all possible people), I still won't use that word, but others may.

[Slim Cognito]

My Seattle transplant friend and I had a talk about offensive words. There are words that certain demographics can use themselves (if they so choose), but nobody else should. For example, she throws the C word around fairly liberally, especially when talking about certain RWNJ media/political figures, but she'd have a fit if a man used it.

I can live with that.

[Foggy]

Yeah, and we have a lot of diversity on Fogbow.

Sadly, the banlist cannot be configured by the sex of the member using a word. How does the software really know if you're posing as a man/woman?

It can't.

So the c*** word and the t*** word will remain on the banlist (they are automagically changed to the word "vagina"), and none of this is really a serious problem because Fogbow people are responsible adults, except you, you, and you in the back with the MAGA hat.

[Gregg]

And me!

Don't forget the screaming inappropriate distempered socialist wrangler of wiener dogs!

I'm pretty sure this thread was started because of me.

[Lani]

Well, I learned early when I moved to Oz that fanny was the nasty word, but the c word was acceptable - both for insulting men and women. Or joking. People were upset when I said fanny, and I freaked out about the c word. I coped...

[bill_g]

A discussion on words Americans should avoid in Australia.

Fanny being one of them. I knew about Randy, but not fanny.

[MsDaisy]

A discussion on words Americans should avoid in Australia.

Fanny being one of them. I knew about Randy, but not fanny.

I learned about that in a pub in Aldeburgh, UK. There was a jolly crowd and I asked the woman sitting next to me to please pass me my fanny pack off the bar. She shushed me handing the pack over she said, “This is a bum bag”, and pointing at her crotch she said, “This is a fanny and you don’t want to be talking of packing this in here.” Her friend on the next stool over nearly fell off laughing.

And then a Geordie walked in. They had a good laugh watching me trying to understand a single word he said…

[jcolvin2]

And then a Geordie walked in. They had a good laugh watching me trying to understand a single word he said…

Geordie Girls with that Newcastle Charm!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJszH8PHZqU

[Foggy]

Off Topic

I'm pretty sure this thread was started because of me.

Absolutely not true.

[Phoenix520]

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[bob]

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[Estiveo]

He tweets something every few days, most recently this morning.

[Gregg]

True Science Fact. I was terrorized in Boston in college because of my very pronounced Argillite twang. I was a poor kid among a bunch of rich snooty kids. My RA, doG bless him, was from Knoxville and he took me under his wing. We used to joke we were best friends because we were the only people in Boston who spoke our language.

Of course, the rich kids thought we were both hopeless heathen bumpkins, they couldn't tell the difference between Knoxville drawl and Argillite Twang.

Wally went to Columbia Law and then went for a year to England and he called me and told me I MUST come to England for grad school. He said they couldn't tell we were hillbillys over there.

That kids, may not be the only reason I went to London for grad school, but it was a big part of why I started looking into going to London.

[Reddog]

Once in a bar, drinking with a friend at that time. We were kidding and I called him something I thought was totally innocent, basically in my mind it was a grade school taunt. It’s at the end of one of Dirty Harry’s quotes asking if the kid felt lucky. It’s also used (at least in my geographic area) to describe an unscented, slow-burning stick to light fireworks. Which reminds me of a British term for burning ember, or cigarette, (starts with “F”)

Although I knew he had spent time in prison, I didn’t realize that’s one of the worst slurs in at least some prisons. Very nearly got into a fight over it, his mom owned the bar and she had to calm him down.

Long story, but my point is context is important, that it’s impossible to censor everything that may offend someone.

But there should be guidelines to limit usage of commonly accepted as repugnant words.