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  • LAVA Moderator: Mysterier

Can you do it without Bad Language?

what lol... i work with people aged from 20 - 65 and they all swear like mad, infact the older people swear more than the younger ones. the oldest guy says fuck every other word, he uses the word "fuck" to punctuate his sentences,
 
depends. depends on influence, self control, behavioral awareness, not just age
 
I have to ask an ignorant question. I am from Ireland so fill me in. WHy is it bad to say the N word? Afterall you say there are no bad words, right? And if you go to dictionary.com it clearly says "dark skinned people.
 
Most bad words are bad words because of the way people use them. Like the "if blacks can call each other 'nigga' why can't white people do the same?" debate. The answer's in human history. If you abuse anything, you may forfeit the "right" to use it. Words are no different. Someone might say the word "fuck" in mixed company and get laughter while another person who abuses the word "fuck" might say it to the same crowd and only receive an eyeroll.

They are just words, but different people give varying levels of power to those words. Like, if I had to make a shot in the dark, I would guess OP's friend is religious in some way, probably a Western religion. Statistically, religious people tend to find swearing more offensive. However, I also know a staunch Catholic woman who swears worse than I do, so people are obvs not statistics.

tl;dr - sure you could do it, some people just don't want to. :D
 
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it's offensive because it brings out memories/images of a large history of systemic racism that occurred in the US specifically against one group. Yet we still make jokes about jews and stuff and the holocaust, i think it's kind of silly but you see enough comics willing to say 'the n word' and talk about it. It's more taboo around here but within circles of white friends, the term is used casually, often as a side kick to the word fuck or replacement for cunt (more popular in the UK i think).

It's a popular topic now though (racism) and the word itself is not often used by today's youth as a form of racism (IME). For example, before my grandfather died he would watch loads of baseball and get drunk everyday. He wasn't racist (well he hated natives) but still admitted many times that 'those niggers can play ball", he wasn't trying to be racist, just using the words he grew up with. Things are different now, i'd think being called a coloured person would be just as offensive but i don't know. You can't just go into a workplace or something and say it though, you will offend someone, the word just hits the ears wrong, likely a cultural and social thing and respect for what happened in the past.

personally i don't feel any word should be off limits as it just makes the word stronger in a social sense, once it's overused people become desnsitized to it and it's no longer as offensive. I still find it a double standard that everyone will throw around blatantly racist remarks against the Jewish people (watch that hard J sound lol) or especially immigrants and native people. I live in backwards ass racist as shit part of Canada though so it's not surprising. Older people (some, not all) will call anyone not white a 'new canadian' or some sort of slur against native people. It's really a good question though.
 
i can't not use bad language cuz i'm an uneducated twit living in uncouth times. using profanity, on the other hand, has little to no effect on my humour. i swear heaps on bl and to certain friends, but i never swear to most people, those with whom i know don't like it or am not entirely comfortable that they're cool with it. actually, i hate it when my (two, both older) brothers swear in front of my parents, cuz i know they don't like it.

bel is correct, comedians tailor their humour to their audiences. since i'm an amateur hack, i tailor my jokes from person to person or group to group.
 
Re the "n-word": Though this will sound like a cop-out to most BLers, I don't think you can understand it if you're not black. Sure, there are hordes of derogatory terms for various "white" groups; while I admit I can't comment on what it's like to be an Irish who's called a mick or a Jew who's called a kike, I can say that being called a nigger cuts to the quick, because it's not just about you, it's about everything you're associated with. It completely dehumanizes you, reduces you the level of chattel, something that's not even really alive, and you feel it. Like I said, I know this will sail in one ear and out the other of lots of white people who read this, but that's how it is. I think probably the closest derogatory term to it in common usage is bitch when used to refer to a woman, which women hate not just because it's personal, but because it also reduces them to the equivalent of domestic animals.
 
If anyone's ever been to a comedy club you know how many shitty comedians there are that swear to the point of over-doing it. So it most certainly doesn't have anything to do with swearing that George Carlin is where he is. He's just funnier than most.

Your friend is an idiot.
 
I have to agree with Belisarius - there's a big difference between generally swearing and using a derogatory name which has known negative connotations, especially if you use it as a personal attack.

I guess it's easy to dismiss people as being a bit conservative or whatever but everyone has different morals and values and boundaries.
 
bartmania said:
Well I just wonder if cussing fades with age? I am foul mouthed degenerate asshole, but not sure of other people. You never meet at 45 year old man using the fuck word.
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My 60-year-old professor had a mouth like a sailor this past semester.

Me? I could do without swearing. I think it makes you look uneducated--As though you couldn't find a better word to describe your heap of paper work or clothes, so you call it your "shit" on the desk. :p But with comedians, I think swearing gives them the shock value, as others have touched upon.
 
Swearing helps me convey my message with a more abrasive manner.
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This

Swearing adds a certain edge to spoken word (and written for that matter) that words which aren't taboo lack. If a discussion is getting heated, throwing a couple swear words in during the crux of an argument definitely conveys a sense of importance to it.

As for swear words in comedy, I don't think comedians who don't swear are as funny because, again, swearing adds an extra dimension to the content of the words. Not that clean language cant be funny, it just lacks a certain type of edge that swear words bring to the table.

Im 25 and male for the record.
 
I like peppering my language with cursing. It feels natural to me much to the disappointment of my parents. However, I know how not to otherwise I would not have a job. I respect if someone is uncomfortable with foul language. In fact, there have been times when I have asked someone if they find it offensive as there initial reaction was obvious.
 
To also add a personal note, I also swear a *lot* among my close friends and coworkers, though I'm trying to get over it. Habits like that have a tendency to spill over into arenas where they're a little more costly than embarrassment, and those are the realms I plan to inhabit in the future.
 
Re: The N word... I agree to an extent that only black people can entirely feel it, but I do think that if I was angry enough at a white person to want to degrade them like with the N-word, I could do it pretty easily. Off the top of my head, I could call him "ugly, slackjaw motherfucker" or something like that.
 
Belisarius said:
To also add a personal note, I also swear a *lot* among my close friends and coworkers, though I'm trying to get over it. Habits like that have a tendency to spill over into arenas where they're a little more costly than embarrassment, and those are the realms I plan to inhabit in the future.
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same here, bad habit indeed, bad habit of mine... doesn't help with working and having friends who also swear like mad either. i used to kinda phase swearing out, but now ive made myself more concious of other peoples swearing and it sounds awful when people keep saying fuck or fuckin or whatever through sentences as if to use it as punctuation, infact it irritates me... even though sometimes im just as bad
 
Stephen Fry > Your Friend

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Cursing as a crutch is terrible, cursing for the sake of cursing while also being able to concisely express yourself is wonderful
 
^Bingo. When people start their sentence with "Fucken", my ears tend to shut down. I also don't like excessive swearing in the workplace. I tend to swear more around certain family members and friends, but can easily turn the swear-switch off in my head when needed and can communicate well without it. I do, however, think adding a dash of profanity to a sentence can spice it up. The word "fucking" used as an adjective can be like a splash of tabasco to a sentence ;)
 
^ Agreed.

I had a conversation with a coworker just the other day about swearing. I mentioned that it's funny, in a way, that I have no qualms whatsoever with cursing and do plenty of it myself (contextually, of course!), yet I get slightly offended when a customer/client/whatever approaches me with a foul mouth. I'm more offended at the fact that they don't know me and have no concern for whether or not their language offends me than at their language itself. If someone drops a couple "fucks" in the conversation seconds after meeting them, I find that I immediately find them to be rude or inconsiderate, but if they feel me out in conversation for a bit before assessing my personality and THEN drop a couple "fucks" in... I don't tend to mind it at all.

Funny how cursing can have such a profound influence on first impressions.
 
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