Profanity evolved

[Farm Boy]

I think profanity has changed purposes. Whereas before it was to make a point louder, I think today it's to just pass valuable information to people in the in-group while turning off people in the out-group. In this case in-group means those comfortable with profanity so long as the message is on point and the out-group being those who care most about how something is dressed up, rather than what something is. The latter people run a lot of this society so to improve things, to outcompete them without them knowing what we're doing or thinking, we load our written speech with "bad" words.

I think this is probably an at least partially accurate description of some profanity. It can be cultural marker or group-contextual conveying a rough sort of intimacy. But I don't really think this is a change in purpose, is it? What is acceptable and what is a swear changes. Some get mainstreamed or outdated and the profanity needs to change to remain profanity, and that seems an old phenomenon.

 

[warpus]

In society we draw vague lines in the sand. Some things are okay to say, some aren't, and a bunch of words and phrases are sort of in a grey middle - okay to say in some situations, not okay in others.

Proper use of profanity highlights people who have gotten good at navigating these lines. If you crack a joke at the dinner table, using a bit of profanity, and that level of profanity is acceptable? You are a hero - skirting near the lines, taking a risk, yet coming out on top. Such a person gets applause and his/her social standing improves, due to the risk taken and the successful delivery of the joke. Except for grandma, who is annoyed that you used such a word, and silently resents you, spitting on your cupcake when you're not looking. But that's the risk you take when you swear.

 

[Borachio]

This old guy I know is in a nursing home. He resents practically everything, and swears at all and sundry and especially at his own body. He regularly gets told off for swearing at the staff, so I asked him whether it made him feel better to swear. And he said it did.

So, there's that, I suppose.

 

[madviking]

profanity is how i avoid losing my mind.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

profanity is how i avoid losing my mind.

Sort of like a trail of breadcrumbs.

 

[Quintillus]

I thought this would be about profanity evolving over time, which does happen. Alas, it is not.

Something interesting happened on the TrekBBS forum recently (large Star Trek forum). That forum uses Google ads to pay for itself, in addition to some premium memberships that some people pay to avoid ads. Google decided that there was far too much profanity and explicit sexuality on that forum - the areas that turn up in Google searches, anyway - and so a directive came down to the admins there to clean things up.

Google cares about the content on sites where its ads appear? Huh; never knew that. I never thought that Google was a primary provider of the really raunchy ads, but I also didn't expect that they'd seriously object to a customer putting regular Google ads on a somewhat salty site. Learn something new every day.

Gawker actually had an interesting article on profanity today. The crux of the article is that for a long time white people didn't really have the "blanket slur" like the n-word or the c-word, etc. White males have slurs levied against them, but they're regional and classist in nature, and thus don't really affect the white male of privilege. He argues that perhaps douchebag accomplishes that sentiment.


Trigger Warning: NSFW, language, obviously.
<snip>

I don't know, I agree with the first poster at Gawker that it's a term predominantly about behavior. It's like a step up from "jerk". I don't currently associate it with whites, and as a white male myself, I don't personally find it racially offensive. It does have a tinge of generally being a jerk towards subordinates, and historically the U.S. has discriminated against non-whites when it comes to leadership positions, which may be why most of that author's examples are white. But I think you could just as easily say "Mao Zedong was a real douchebag during the Cultural Revolution", or apply it to famous athletes who are jerks of any race.

The one I thought of before reading the article was "white trash", but it is indeed more socioeconomic than racial (though it has elements of both). But neither it nor any of the ones in the article is indeed that general purpose. "Whitey" used to be a nickname (Whitey Ford, for example, as well as someone I knew in college), "cracker" also isn't general-purpose nor even necessarily recognized in some areas (though again, I knew someone in college who went by that nickname occasionally), and most of the rest are regional. So the lack of a general-purpose insult is there, I just don't think the author has found one.

Perhaps it's more effective against those who are rich, but even then I'm not sure it would have much of an effect on people who are really good people and not at all jerks.

I think this is probably an at least partially accurate description of some profanity. It can be cultural marker or group-contextual conveying a rough sort of intimacy. But I don't really think this is a change in purpose, is it? What is acceptable and what is a swear changes. Some get mainstreamed or outdated and the profanity needs to change to remain profanity, and that seems an old phenomenon.

Yeah... it can indeed be a cultural marker. I don't see the point about those higher-up in society using it as a cultural marker or whatever, but I can see it being used among groups of friends where to them it's a term of affection even, but it appears offensive to those outside the group.

As for myself, I use profanity rarely, and then usually for emphasis. And even then it's usually limited to something like "that was pretty [adjective that means it has a lot of blood] stupid".

 

[Loppan Torkel]

I think profanity has changed purposes. Whereas before it was to make a point louder, I think today it's to just pass valuable information to people in the in-group while turning off people in the out-group. In this case in-group means those comfortable with profanity so long as the message is on point and the out-group being those who care most about how something is dressed up, rather than what something is. The latter people run a lot of this society so to improve things, to outcompete them without them knowing what we're doing or thinking, we load our written speech with "bad" words.

It's all good then. The 'in-group' is successfully keeping the elite out from their progressive, fighting-the-system thinking.

It sounds like every parent-child relationship in history.

I'm sure there are certain sub-groups who uses profanity in various, creative ways, just as there are poets and writers who don't need profanity to express their creativity. It's nothing more to it than this. Language change over time. In Sweden the 'c' word is used in public radio and TV at times. No censuring for profanity.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Google cares about the content on sites where its ads appear? Huh; never knew that. I never thought that Google was a primary provider of the really raunchy ads, but I also didn't expect that they'd seriously object to a customer putting regular Google ads on a somewhat salty site. Learn something new every day.

The way it was explained was something about the offensive content turning up in 'safe search' mode. Google likes to pretend that its "safe search" mode is actually family-friendly, and doesn't think it's at all hypocritical to dictate the content of a forum, yet subject that forum's members to offensive ads (or so I hear... as one of the people there with a paid membership, I never see any ads).

 

[madviking]

I don't know, I agree with the first poster at Gawker that it's a term predominantly about behavior. It's like a step up from "jerk". I don't currently associate it with whites, and as a white male myself, I don't personally find it racially offensive. It does have a tinge of generally being a jerk towards subordinates, and historically the U.S. has discriminated against non-whites when it comes to leadership positions, which may be why most of that author's examples are white. But I think you could just as easily say "Mao Zedong was a real douchebag during the Cultural Revolution", or apply it to famous athletes who are jerks of any race.

The one I thought of before reading the article was "white trash", but it is indeed more socioeconomic than racial (though it has elements of both). But neither it nor any of the ones in the article is indeed that general purpose. "Whitey" used to be a nickname (Whitey Ford, for example, as well as someone I knew in college), "cracker" also isn't general-purpose nor even necessarily recognized in some areas (though again, I knew someone in college who went by that nickname occasionally), and most of the rest are regional. So the lack of a general-purpose insult is there, I just don't think the author has found one.

Perhaps it's more effective against those who are rich, but even then I'm not sure it would have much of an effect on people who are really good people and not at all jerks.

it's either "douchebag" or something like, as the case is at my university, "dudebro".

 

[Hygro]

A Site Feedback thread made this relevant again http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=561156

 

[darkedone02]

I don't understand why they called it profanity in the first place or "curse words" as more people called it... I swear alot and I use these cussword to get my point across alot... I often use it to vent my frusteration and anger on something, I also tend to use it whenever I am mad at myself on anything that I can't do... it's part of my vocabulary and I don't get offended when people use it.

to be honest, it's only the religious people who don't care much for it, curse words have been made up by those people because they don't like the words and how people used them... so people get offended by it... in this modern world of 2015, a whole lot less people don't give a single <snip> anymore, we basically have a restructured moral system to where we have a different do's and don't...


Moderator Action: Inappropriate language removed.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Valka D'Ur]

to be honest, it's only the religious people who don't care much for it...

Atheist here. And while I do tend to swear when I'm alone or really angry at someone, it rarely gets to the point of using certain words we're not allowed to use here.

Religion has nothing to do with my objections to certain words and phrases. It's the lack of respect and outright hostility that's being shown by the speaker/poster that upsets me.

 

[Zkribbler]

Religion has nothing to do with my objections to certain words and phrases. It's the lack of respect and outright hostility that's being shown by the speaker/poster that upsets me.

IMHO, it also indicates a lazy brain.

I swear very little.

I live down the street from CavLancer & I cannot recall him ever swearing.

 

[sophie]

IMHO, it also indicates a lazy brain.

I swear very little.

I live down the street from CavLancer & I cannot recall him ever swearing.

To copypaste from the other thread:

If you can find filter-friendly alternatives for [poop]back, [poop]post, bull/horse[poop], [butt]hole, [excrement]hole, [device for capturing douche slurry], [poop] (in the general "Sache" or "Stoff" sense) that still capture the specific connotations and sense being expressed by the terms, let me know.

Because no, [butt]hole and butthole are not the same thing.

To people still doggedly declaring that "profanity is unskilled" or that profanity "limits your vocabulary", I'm still waiting for a satisfactory answer to the above.

Or, to counter, give me an expletive and I will explain to you precisely why it has a deep and nuanced meaning that can't be easily replicated with alternatives without either:

a) opting for words so archaic or obscure that nobody knows what you're talking about
b) communicating the message in such a roundabout manner that the overall flow of the discourse or interest of the audience is lost

Or you guys can just keep [creating a feedback loop of reciprocal sexual satisfaction] about how eloquent you are because you don't say [fornication]boy or whatever.

 

[BvBPL]

It may not be unskilled or impose limitations, but it is as uncreative as copying and pasting something from another thread.

 

[Zkribbler]

To assert that "bull/horse[poop]" cannot be expressed in ways other than through profanity is erroneous, is completely erroneous, is most probably intentionally erroneous. Moreover, this assertion is demonstrably inaccurate: "bull/horse[poop]" has value as manure while intentionally erroneous assertions have no positive value whatsoever. Q.E.D.

 

[sophie]

To assert that "bull/horse[poop]" cannot be expressed in ways other than through profanity is erroneous, is completely erroneous, is most probably intentionally erroneous. Moreover, this assertion is demonstrably inaccurate: "bull/horse[poop]" has value as manure while intentionally erroneous assertions have no positive value whatsoever. Q.E.D.

That's some real erroneous right there.

bull[poop] carries a much weightier, more emphatic sense than erroneous does. While erroneous does carry the meaning of something being in error, it does so in a more neutral tone and doesn't carry the same feeling of something not just being wrong but being, obviously, self-evidently, *stupidly* wrong, and fie on the person who, whether by malice or willful ignorance, is trying to pass it off as valid.

bull[poop] also, as I pointed out in the first sentence can act substantively and describe a wider, more general atmosphere or context sense (in the "Sache" sense that many [poop] words have come to encompass) that erroneous, by its nature as an adjective, can not carry.

Bull[poop] can also describe a situation that, while not literally incorrect, is contradictory or unfair. For example: "I'm not allowed to use bull[poop] on these forums?! That's bull[poop]!"

Horse[poop] is a word that means something similar to bull[poop] but is not quite the same. Horse[poop] usually carries a greater sense of intention on the part of the perpetrator. "That's horse[poop] and you know it!"

 

[Kyriakos]

It may not be unskilled or impose limitations, but it is as uncreative as copying and pasting something from another thread.

Profanity is dull, and people using it at best project individual and unrealistic meaning into it

 

[sophie]

Profanity is dull, and people using it at best project individual and unrealistic meaning into it

You should give it a try. Might make your prose actually readable for a change.

 

[Kyriakos]

You should give it a try. Might make your prose actually readable for a change.

See, you are in the business of projecting unrealistic views on stuff just as a knee-jerk attitude I am by any rate respected as a writer, and not even knowing any of my work should have had prevented you from posting an entirely knee-jerk reaction, had you not been in that loop already for ages.