Curses!

[vovat]

Last night, I had a dream where I was using a computer, and, when I started it up, there was some weird quiz based on the contents of the hard drive. There was also a dream about getting lost in an area I should have known well, and one where bethje told me about HER dream, where her dog Dewey made friends with himself as a puppy.

Anyway, I mentioned that I might go into more detail on some of the issues that were addressed on Bullshit!, so I might as well start now, with the one on curse words. They talked to a few people who thought cursing was bad. One lady, who was a drivers' education teacher, advised using OTHER words in place of curses, which struck me as kind of silly, if you're using them in the same way you'd use curse words. A man thought that people who cursed were insulting his intelligence. Now, I've heard the argument that people who curse a lot are uncreative, and I guess I can see that in SOME situations. For instance, if someone says "fuck" for every other word, the word loses all effect, and the person probably does come off as sounding less intelligent, or at least less creative, than if they'd show a wider vocabulary. On the other hand, this is true if a person overuses ANY word, not just one that's been determined to be "bad." And there are times when a curse word is more appropriate and effective than a clever substitute.

I certainly think there are situations where certain words should be avoided out of consideration and politeness, but just saying, "These are words you should never say, because they're BAD" is kind of dumb. Personally, I tend to curse out loud quite a bit when I'm angry, but I rarely curse in writing, unless I'm quoting someone, or I really find it necessary. What I'll never really understand is when someone blanks out letters from a curse word. You know, like "f**k." What, they think people who might be offended aren't going to be able to mentally fill in the blanks?

Penn and Teller also brought up the FCC, but that's another subject entirely. I do have to say that they often come across as bullies, though.

I've started reading Harry Mongold's Button-Bright of Oz. It's been pretty good so far. I'll probably write a review on it soon, which I'm sure no one will read.

I'm listening to XTC's Skylarking, because I thought I should listen to it before the summer ended. I always associate that album with summer, not only because of songs like "Summer's Cauldron," but because I first bought it when I was taking summer classes. I was just getting into XTC at that point, and I quoted "The Ugly Underneath" (which is from Nonsuch, not Skylarking, by the way) in a paper. It turned out that my Research Writing professor was a fan. Who would have known?

Comments

[3x1minus1.livejournal.com]

i think the whole notion of swearing is ridiculous... words should be just words, if it's already a word, why should certain ones be "offensive" - just because people say they are? but i'm also a hypocrite and i don't often use them verbally... i was brought up as a sweet innocent and polite kid, and that's hard to completely shake. heh. (my sister, on the other hand...)

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm of two minds about the issue, since I can see that people have aversions to certain words, and it's polite not to use those words around them. I don't know that we can really consider any words to be universally "bad," though.

I didn't curse much when I was younger. For some reason, I think I started doing it more when I went away to college. I'm not sure if that was because more people around me were cursing, or because I just got angrier at that point. I guess I've always been pretty angry, though.

[yosef.livejournal.com]

I'll read the review! Is that one of the books that's unpublished?

[vovat.livejournal.com]

It was self-published, I guess. It contains some copyrighted characters (at least one of them, anyway--Trickolas Om from Lucky Bucky in Oz), so it's probably not eligible for professional printing and distribution.

[revme.livejournal.com]

That'd be a pretty interesting episode, but well, they're always interesting, cause it's Penn and Teller, and even when I disagree with them, they're usually still engaging/entertaining/interesting. But yeah, it _always_ has pissed me off when folks are all like "f*ck" or whatnot; I can appreciate your not wanting to swear and whatnot, but if you don't want to swear, um, don't swear. Don't bowlderize it and make me go "OH NO WHAT DO THEY MEAN? FACK? FECK? FICK?"

I'd like to see the bit about the FCC, since I'm sort of weird about them. I _hate hate hate_ the whole bullshit about making things safe for kiddies and whatnot that makes it so we can't have swears and such on broadcast TV (and to a lesser extent, even cable). And... it's weird because I think the constant deregulation they've been doing lately is _completely idiotic_, but I've always had a problem with their shutting down of Pirate stations as well. So I sorta am pulled in two directions by the whole regulation thing. (Which, y'know, is fixed by Regulating and Also offering LPFM licenses.) So... yeah. I don't know. FCC would be cool if they'd actually stop fucking around with bullshit like Boner saying "fuck" or errant titties or whatnot and actually do things that matter, like Clear Channel owning every goddamn radio station in the world.

Arrr.

[tisok.livejournal.com]

i once quoted JKP in a history paper and found out the teacher was a fan.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

A fan of TMBG, or of Polk? {g}