#77673 - Swear words

[Katya]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/77673/

One time someone asked, "Does it make you uncomfortable when we swear?" I said "Well, yes, it does, actually." And he proceeded to tell me that it's my own fault, and that swear words are offensive only because I choose to be offended. He and a few other classmates made the arguments that "they're only words" and that they would lose their shock value if I just chose not to be shocked. In fact, one kid said it was people like me that caused the perpetuation of swearing-- kids wouldn't start doing it if no one got offended.

It's true that taboo language is culturally determined, so the kid saying that "swear words are offensive only because [we] choose to be offended" has a point (although it's not as though a single individual has power over an entire culture). However, the "kids wouldn't start doing it if no one got offended" argument can also be turned on its head; if a given word was no longer considered offensive, then kids would just move on to a word that did have shock value.

[Marduk]

I've honestly never understood being bothered by others' swearing. It is something they choose to do. I don't personally choose it (usually,) and I have my reasons for that. But why on Earth would I mind if others made different choices? Their choice to swear has little bearing on my choice not to.

[Digit]

This topic makes me remember once seeing an investigative report on TV, maybe it was Frontline, looking at Tourette's Syndrome. One expert said that in some cases (not necessarily all), the urge to yell a swear word comes from their knowledge that they shouldn't say a given word, and that seed is what nucleates into a "forbidden fruit" and their thoughts go into overdrive thinking "I can't say that, I cant' say that, I need to say that!" like an itch that they just need to scratch, that keeps coming back after they "scratch" it.

I wondered after watching that show, what if you took someone with that kind of Tourette's Syndrome and put them in an extended environment where they continually observed people getting really offended by someone who who is minding their manners and sitting quietly, but responding to them happily when they swear.

[UffishThought]

To play devil's advocate, here, my dad is quite sensitive to swearing. If a book or movie swears more than once or twice, he stops and picks another, because he feels there are enough admirable books and movies without that he doesn't need to subject himself to ones that cause him pain. He told me the other day that he was mentioning on forums in Amazon that he wished there were an app for the Kindle that would eliminate or replace curses in books--a sort of cleanflix or clearplay for ebooks--and was attacked by people lecturing him about how he shouldn't care about swearing. The urge to try to change his mind and tell him why his personal taste is wrong is one he doesn't understand. As an artist, he knows not everyone will like his paintings, and that's okay with him. He also knows that if someone who is offended by horses buys his painting, they can paint over the horses or use a post-it note to cover them or scissors to remove them or modify the painting in any way they choose, because they own it. He doesn't understand the urge to experience art as the artist intended, because to him, the customer (or at least the owner) is king.

Plus, although swearing may have become commonplace to many people, the first few times someone curses, they probably pick the words they do because they're trying to emphasize a concept and are trying to use the shock value of society's forbidden words to do it. At some point, they wanted to offend, because they wanted that linguistic power. With time and use, I think the word morphs for them from a shockingly strong word to an everyday emphasizer on par with "very." But it stared as forbidden, and if it weren't, new swear words would crop up. To him, the problem of offense doesn't go away if we all swear more, it just changes ground.

I think, from his point of view, it's a bit like smoking. Someone who smokes often and is usually around other smokers becomes desensitized to the drop in air quality. Since smoke-filled air is a near-constant for them, they don't see it as a big deal, and might not be very sympathetic to those who find it irritating or rude or painful. Whereas someone who is rarely around smokers is often very sensitive to the air, and their discomfort is likely to be genuine. And it's more insulting if then the smoker lectures the nonsmoker about how they should toughen up their lungs and it's really not so bad when you get used to it, and blows smoke in the nonsmoker's face to force them to acclimate whether or not they want to.

Personally, swearing doesn't bug me much in movies, though it starts to irritate me when it's used in-person as punctuation in speech, or when people (usually my students or people in public areas where children are) seem to be incapable of modifying their language to fit their surroundings. I even swear a bit myself, sometimes for emphasis, sometimes as a way of cluing people into the fact that I'm not always letter-of-the-law-y in my observance of Mormonism, and that I won't be excessively judgey of others. But in doing that, I'm assuming that other people are as desensitized as I am, and that their connotations of the curses I choose to use are the same as mine, when if I stop and think about it, I know that's not always the case.

It's kind of like the white kid in one of my classes who, when I told him he couldn't use the n-word during my class (and probably shouldn't use it at all), said "but why not? I don't mean it racistly!" But with communication, what the other person understands is at least as important as what you meant, and possibly more so. The n-word is so charged and has so much history, that even if he's come to mean it as a compliment, someone will take offense. Other swear words aren't as charged, but they run similar risks.

Anyway, this got rambly, but talking to my dad has reminded me that authorial intent is only part of the picture, and that it's not unreasonable to hope that when when in public, the masses will refrain from violating society's taboos. I'd kind of forgotten that other people have their own backgrounds and tastes and sensitivities, especially with swearing. Maybe I'll try to dial it back unless I'm sure that the people I'm with are fine with swearing, too.

[bobtheenchantedone]

It's interesting that your dad's a painter, because in my comment that I wrote out and then never posted I made the following analogy to painting: to me, swearing is like using hot pink or sparkles in a painting - very few people would want a painting entirely or even mostly made up of them, and many artists even avoid using those colors entirely, but some applied at the right times in the right places can have a good effect on the whole piece.

I am a little sad that your father would describe it like smoking - something that poisons both the user and the people around them - but I can see why someone who is religious might see it that way. However, even before I started to swear myself, I got rid of that way of thinking. When I thought of swear words like the poison or physical harm that I'd been taught to think of them as, whenever they were used I was distracted from the conversation at hand and found myself less able to sympathize or see the point of view of the speaker. In a very real way, my response to their word choice was "othering," subtly leading me to disregard the speaker completely based on a few words that I now believe are really just words (though strong ones). Perhaps it could be argued that the others brought that distancing upon themselves, that they deserve it for choosing to speak that way, but that goes against my understanding of the gospel. Whatever causes me to love my neighbor less is something that needs to be done away with, and in this case I am more than happy to say that swear words no longer have a negative effect on me.

I'm also reminded of a professor I had my first semester at UVU. She tells a story of a day when two students came up to her after class, complimented her on her intelligence, and then said that if she was really so intelligent surely she'd be able to find better words than swear words to express herself. She was actually pretty offended by this. She reminded them that she's a poet, words are her medium, and asking her to change her vocabulary like that was like telling an artist to quit using certain colors.

[Portia]

Swearing has lots of linguistic purposes ... exclamations of surprise, pain, or pleasure; emphasis; and insulting and contempt. I know very few people who don't utter a swear word or a euphemism if they stub their toe. Most this discussion has revolved around emphasis. But I have been on the receiving end (and occasionally giving, granted) of cursing meant to wound, and there's a world of difference, in my opinion, between being called a "b*tch" in an argument and someone saying "sh*t" when their thumb and the hammer make contact; "f*** you" hurts in a way "f***!" doesn't. Although all could be considered vulgarity.

[mic0]

Another linguistic purpose is identity. There are certainly people who swear (or DON'T swear) in order to mark themselves as part of a group, or distance themselves from another group. Swearing can also be a part of someone's upbringing and then they are not saying things for "shock value," but just as a normal part of expressing things in their community (again, marking them as a member of that community, but it really isn't as dramatic as some people seem to think).

[yayfulness]

With all due respect, I think you're all kind of missing the point. The point here is that the questioner has no more right to dictate the language of her friends than her friends have to dictate her language. Whether or not swearing is actually acceptable is a moot point. (An exception, of course, would be if she were in some position of authority over them. A teacher can tell a student not to swear. A student can't really tell a teacher not to swear, except by appealing to a universally recognized authority even higher than the teacher.)

[Marduk]

With all due respect, I think you're all kind of missing the point. The point here is that the questioner has no more right to dictate the language of her friends than her friends have to dictate her language. Whether or not swearing is actually acceptable is a moot point. (An exception, of course, would be if she were in some position of authority over them. A teacher can tell a student not to swear. A student can't really tell a teacher not to swear, except by appealing to a universally recognized authority even higher than the teacher.)

Actually, that's pretty much exactly the point I was getting at.

[Katya]

I think I need to clarify that when I said that taboo language is culturally determined, I didn't mean "it's arbitrary and therefore meaningless and we should all be fine with it." I meant something more along the lines that there's a reason this reader (and Uffish's dad and others) are offended by American English swear words, but not by French swear words, for example, or British English swear words (to the extent that they differ from American ones) or Colonial American swear words, and it's more productive to approach the situation with that in mind than it is to simply say "Some words are 'bad'" or "No words are 'bad.'" (I'm also reading a sociolinguistics textbook at the moment, so I've been thinking about these issues a lot.)

To be honest, I'd say that being extremely sensitive to even mild interjections/epithets and being completely inured to the use of all strong language both speak to a lack of social integration, for better or for worse.

With all due respect, I think you're all kind of missing the point.

I'm not missing the point, I'm offering a sociolinguistic analysis of the situation. (Was that what the reader asked for? No, it wasn't, but I think it's interesting, so that's why I'm talking about it here. )

[Portia]

It appears that swearing in response to pain could be deeply rooted in the amygdala.

[Marduk]

To be honest, I'd say that being extremely sensitive to even mild interjections/epithets and being completely inured to the use of all strong language both speak to a lack of social integration, for better or for worse.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by "completely inured." One can understand the relative strength of a particular word without finding it unpleasant per se.

[Genuine Article]

(it's me, you guys, it's me D.A.R.E.)

I briefly had a linguistic professor who was talking to us about register, and about how we speak one way around some people and another way around others. (Have you already talked about this here? I didn't read anything above the last few posts. I'm just writing what GA told me to. Back off already, sheesh.) He told us that around one group of friends, he would expect to be greeted with something along the lines of, "Spike, you son of a *****, how the **** are you!", and if he didn't respond with a comparable level of profanity, he would be the one giving offense.

I guess I don't have anything to add to that other than the fact that Spike was a rad linguistic professor, and I'm sorry that I only had him for one day, and that register is an interesting phenomenon, and that taboos don't always cross those lines.

[vorpal blade]

I've honestly never understood being bothered by others' swearing. It is something they choose to do. I don't personally choose it (usually,) and I have my reasons for that. But why on Earth would I mind if others made different choices? Their choice to swear has little bearing on my choice not to.

Why wouldn't you mind if people made different choices? I'm reminded of this story.

As we Brethren travel about the world, sometimes we see worrisome scenes. On a recent flight, I sat behind a husband and wife. She obviously loved her husband. As she stroked the back of his neck I could see her wedding ring. She would nestle close to him and rest her head upon his shoulder, seeking his companionship.

In contrast, he seemed totally oblivious to her presence. He was focused solely upon an electronic game player. During the entire flight, his attention was riveted upon that device. Not once did he look at her, speak to her, or acknowledge her yearning for affection.

His inattention made me feel like shouting: “Open your eyes, man! Can’t you see? Pay attention! Your wife loves you! She needs you!”

Ted E. Brewerton gave a great talk on Profanity and Swearing. https://www.lds.org/general-conference/ ... g?lang=eng Here is a one of the many quotes I liked in the talk.

If we are not most careful with our thoughts and speech, the words we use will use us. Language has its own ethics, and one who communicates truth is like a bright light in the darkness. We must nurture language like that.

How interesting it is to hear nonmembers of the Church express their feelings about bad language. I like very much the title and comments used by Bob Greene of the Field Newspaper Syndicate who speaks of swearing in these terms. The title he uses is “Hear Pollution.”

“Obscenity, the open use of which used to be a mark of lower social strata, has somehow become acceptable in everyday conversation for everyday people.

“And yet, I am offended—not out of a sense of morality or of prudishness—but because foul language used casually in public comes close to the idea of a violation of privacy. I know that there are some around who feel assaulted by hearing it. I chose that word very carefully; certain language is an assault on the senses.

“Those who disagree are probably saying, ‘after all, it’s only words.’ But words are vehicles; they convey messages. And to some people, the message of profanity is a message of ugliness and aggressiveness and a disrespect for civil behavior.

“Bathroom and sexual obscenities can now be heard in certain popular songs on the radio, and even some magazines and newspapers have begun to print language that would have been unthinkable five years ago. This practice is usually defended under the name of ‘freedom.’ But whose freedom is it? If the language of ugliness becomes so much a part of our society that it is impossible to escape no matter where one turns, then who is free and who isn’t?”

[Portia]

I think this is an example of the recency illusion. There's plenty of swearing in Shakespeare among all social classes. But do to amelioration/pejoration, the saltiness doesn't affect us the same way.

I don't think going back to the Hays Code is the answer. And I highly doubt that 1978 was all that innocent of a year for radio play. (I mean, really.)

[Katya]

To be honest, I'd say that being extremely sensitive to even mild interjections/epithets and being completely inured to the use of all strong language both speak to a lack of social integration, for better or for worse.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by "completely inured." One can understand the relative strength of a particular word without finding it unpleasant per se.

Well, if someone is using a word with the intent to be offensive, and if most people in a community do find it offensive, but you don't . . . you're not integrated into that community. (But that may or may not be a bad thing.)

There's also the matter of being able to produce language appropriate to a situation. I.e., not using swear words in a professional setting or around children or at church or around your grandmother, etc. And, as D.A.R.E. points out, there are situations where you may cause offense or concern by not using a swear word! (Robert Kirby has a great column about how he figured out his fishing buddy was going to be his new bishop when he suddenly quick cursing on their fishing trips.)

[Portia]

I'm reading The Monkey Wrench Gang, and Hayduke is the black sheep of the group by being completely unable to communicate without cursing. Bonnie Abbzug's retorts to him about this and other things are hilarious. ("I have a master's degree in French literature...") He admits that he can't communicate without swearing.

[vorpal blade]

(it's me, you guys, it's me D.A.R.E.)

I briefly had a linguistic professor who was talking to us about register, and about how we speak one way around some people and another way around others. (Have you already talked about this here? I didn't read anything above the last few posts. I'm just writing what GA told me to. Back off already, sheesh.) He told us that around one group of friends, he would expect to be greeted with something along the lines of, "Spike, you son of a *****, how the **** are you!", and if he didn't respond with a comparable level of profanity, he would be the one giving offense.

I totally understand the risk of giving offense by not responding on the same level. I remember one time taking a sponsor out to a fancy dinner. At the end of the dinner he insisted that we all share a cigar with him. I refused to meet him at his level, and he was so offended that I didn't get the sponsorship and was unable to do the research project I really wanted to do. Somehow insisting that I smoke with him was not a cause for offense, but I was the one giving offense by refusing.

As another example, perhaps many of us have had the experience of refusing the sexual advances of another. Think of Joseph resisting day after day the sexual advances of Potiphar's wife. Finally when she had Joseph alone she grabbed hold of his coat. Joseph fled. Not meeting her on her level so offended her that she falsely accused Joseph to her husband and nearly got Joseph killed. But he did spend years in prison.

Yep, when you don't meet the world on its level you give offense to the world, and it can be hard on you.

[Portia]

That post made me laugh. Maybe we're all too nerdy to be worrying about Cuban cigars and dames in this less sexy generation. :P

[vorpal blade]

I suppose from a certain point of view my post could be seen as funny. But for many people in this forum it isn't funny. There is a big problem today of people with power and authority abusing their position to coerce sex from others. In the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife we see a pattern familiar to us today. True, we don't have slaves, but many of us are in unequal relationships of power. Joseph was Potiphar's slave, and to resist Potiphar's wife ran the very real risk of being killed. Today that risk might be losing your job, your reputation, or your family, and in some cases your life.

Joseph was being raped by Potiphar's wife. From that point of view I don't see anything funny about rape, as I'm sure you would agree.