Is the word ******** offensive?
- Thread starter NovaKart
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I don't think it is offensive, and realize that ********, like any other word, has certain situations where it should be avoided. However, these groups that try to make certain words taboo are just annoying. I thought our society was moving in a more liberal, free direction after all...
Like this "R-word" association; one, there are more important things to campaign about, two, ever hear of a "euphemism treadmill"?
Like this "R-word" association; one, there are more important things to campaign about, two, ever hear of a "euphemism treadmill"?
CaptainF
The Professional Poster
Pretty much every pejorative term to describe someone as "severely unintelligent" will offend someone, somehow.
Terxpahseyton
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"mentally challenged" 
I like the message of the pic - but come one. "Challenged" sounds so soft because implies something that can be overcome. The guy in the picture can't overcome his mental handicap. He can only deal with it. Another fine example of how political correctness distorts the truth 
I like the message of the pic - but come one. "Challenged" sounds so soft because implies something that can be overcome. The guy in the picture can't overcome his mental handicap. He can only deal with it. Another fine example of how political correctness distorts the truth 
Sure, but I don't care much about it.
Well I would disagree, the term describes the phenomenon of taking absurd measures to avoid "offense", out of oversensitivity to some group. Thus we have the Ba Ba rainbow sheep in certain british nurseries to avoid offending black people.
Yeah a couple of well-meaning people trying to be nice, blown out of all proportion by a hyper-sensitive and sensationalist press, does not a "phenomenon" make. I mean you spoke of "political correctness auditors" having a "majority" in places (gee like Canberra? Thanks for the stereotyping, guy), yet I will guarantee you that no more than like 3 people have ever sincerely made a big deal out of something like that.
As I said, it's bad stand-up fodder, the occasional tabloid beat-up and basically an urban legend.
Yeah, it's called not being a big fat jerk.
Well, it could be described as "niceness" or "ridiculous"-ness. And the "rainbow" sheep is only an example; countless other showcases of political correctness gone bad exist.
Well, not everyone is going to be nice 100% of the time, and the sooner people realize this, the better. Best to just not let yourself get upset by what people say; you're only making yourself angry by doing that.
Let people say what they will, I say. And let these "victims" find a way out of the hole of despair they made for themselves. (note: "hole of despair" is the sadness and negative emotions they have regarding others' actions, not their actual impairment in achieving high standards of life).
TheLastOne36
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I'm more offended that women claimed '********' is a word of the 'American' language.
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
******** just means "slowed." Personally I'm most likely to use it in reference to a fire or other inhibited chemical reaction. Less frequently I might use it in reference to an inefficient bureaucracy.
Getting upset over specific words like this is stupid though. It is especially dumb in this case, where the offensive word is a euphemism adopted decades ago in order to seem less cruel to those with mental problems. Trying to get people to stop using such a world will only lead to reliance on new euphemisms that will become offensive and lead to new PC campaigns in the future. The focus should not be on the word, but the attitude.
Getting upset over specific words like this is stupid though. It is especially dumb in this case, where the offensive word is a euphemism adopted decades ago in order to seem less cruel to those with mental problems. Trying to get people to stop using such a world will only lead to reliance on new euphemisms that will become offensive and lead to new PC campaigns in the future. The focus should not be on the word, but the attitude.
Terxpahseyton
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It can also be called being full of BS. What political correctness as I understand it really means is how a certain mainstream-view - supposedly the manifestation of moral good - manifests itself in a rather dogmatic fashion and by peer pressures others are urged to conform. So political correctness is more or less just a fancy word for peer pressure in public and political opinion. Though in a special context nevertheless, which I have difficulty to define. Often it seems to be related to supporting the allegedly oppressed. Nowadays anyway. At other times it was say being against communists, in America it is being patriotic to this day. They are all dogmatic concepts, rooted in more or less sensible causes, but deformed. Though the deformation varies. Modern political correctness is in comparison a rather harmless deformation, but still a deformation.
The problem is that the idea to help the oppressed can be as good in principle as it wants, it does not ensure that a line of argumentation based on this principle is of good quality. But through mechanisms of peer pressure and fueled by naive good-doers, this becomes less relevant. Helping the oppressed gets a dogmatic and narrow-minded nature.
A result of this are for instance ill-lead public discussions on racial or gender-related quotas. Same goes for integration. There is a latent pressure to approach this from a "the poor oppressed need to be strengthened"-angle, a bias that distorts reality.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
I saw that commercial once; what I got out of it, was that it is okay to say a slur if you are part of the "victimized" group. That doesn't really sit well with me; I don't care if a Polish person (not linguistically or nationally) says "polack", it still annoys me as a Polish American. Of course, I shouldn't let it do that to me, so I just bottle that anger up to deal with later...
Also, who expects to hear those words on daytime television? Shock advertising at its finest...
TheLastOne36
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One of the odd ones.. Seeing as Polak is Pole in Polish.
My views exactly. Mentally Challenged is already used as an offensive term nowadays when I couldn't remember anyone using it as such say 10 years ago.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
That seems like a slightly contrived inference to me. There's nothing about "X word is offensive, don't use it" that implies some corresponding "But it's all fun and japes when I use it". What it says is that it is not the place of those outside of the group in question to decide how its used. Take your example- some Poles think "polack" is acceptable when they use, some don't, but either way, that's your discussion to have, nobody else's. I'm not going to tell you how to use it, any more than I'd allow you to tell me whether or not it's acceptable to use "mick". That's something that people should be left to figure out on their own.
That's kind of the point, yeah.
Yup a lot of books and articles use the word "********" for it's proper usage.
Calling a person that word makes me uncomfortable in a social setting. But in a situation it feels right to use it at times, when it's not about a person. For example "this presentation is ********" or "How ******** is this new economic plan?"
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
Calling a Pole a Polak is like a Spanish person calling an Englishman English instead of Ingles. It really out to be less offensive. (Well, calling a Polish woman a Polak instead of a Polka could be offensive, but no more than referring to Latino women.)
I knew several black guys in high school who said that they wished white people were less hung up on the n-word (which I just discovered after clicking "Go Advanced" that this forum automatically deletes, not even replacing it with smilie faces like most profanity) and were unafraid to use it without the attitude. They liked that I was one of the few white guys who did not get embarrassed and automatically censor direct quotations that included the word. (I've never seen a reason to use it except in direct quotations though.)
I knew several black guys in high school who said that they wished white people were less hung up on the n-word (which I just discovered after clicking "Go Advanced" that this forum automatically deletes, not even replacing it with smilie faces like most profanity) and were unafraid to use it without the attitude. They liked that I was one of the few white guys who did not get embarrassed and automatically censor direct quotations that included the word. (I've never seen a reason to use it except in direct quotations though.)
See, Arwon, that's the proof that there is such thing as "political correctness". R-Word? I mean, really? What are we, stone age bushmen afraid of saying some words out loud because it might anger some vindictive god?
It's the same with "n-word" and other crap like that. The words on themselves are not offensive. They can be used to offend, sure. But you don't need them to offend anyone.
Censoring words does not destroy our ability to offend. I understand the orwellian purpose behind such practices, but it does not work like that.
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