Posts by linger
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...not that there's anything wrong with that.
(fade out: "He's an odd fellow and he's OK...") -
Dunno 'bout party pills, but I suspect by the time of the election most of us'll be wanting to vote for a Chill Pill Party.
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Care to guess who currently holds the UK record for saying 'fuck' the most times in a live broadcast?
My initial reaction was exactly the same as Rich's. Damn. I suppose I've gotta be serious now. One strong contender, if only because she shatters the gender stereotype (while fitting the age and education profile), would be Jade Goody from Big Brother:
Jade is the epitome of the British way of life, versed in such esoteric arts as curry sauce dispensing, knowing the difference between a “minger” and a “munter” and how to work the word “fuck” into any sentence (“Fuckin’ right, you minger”) or indeed amid a single word (“Poppa-fuckin’-dom”).
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Jeremy--
As far as I can tell from observation, there is no language policy on PAS. Everyone is free to voice their opinion in whatever words they choose. There is no "censorship" as such. However, it is a public forum (the clue's there in the title), with -- and welcoming -- a fairly large and diverse audience.This has several effects.
As in any social group, there is some (mostly self-imposed) pressure on long-term participants not to alienate or offend others.
Freedom of speech also means these other participants are free to respond. (Sometimes people go "Ewww"; that's usually the extent of the peer pressure.)
And, as in any social group, people will make inferences about your age, education, and social skills based on your choice of language (and whether they think it's appropriate for the topic) -- whether or not they actually comment on it. You may choose not to care, and that's up to you; but it's part of what people do with language in any society.
(As, indeed, is swearing... at least in conversational style; but part of socialisation is learning what the appropriate limits are, and conversely, those limits tend to get renegotiated a little differently in each generation. As you note, Maharey is one of the younger MPs, and used it in a place that older speakers like Cullen would find highly inappropriate. If Maharey's usage had been unexceptional, it wouldn't have been newsworthy.)
But none of this is "censorship". So, you know, if you're happy using "fucking" in every second sentence around your mother or grandmother [*], and you don't mind that your opinions may be less valued as a result (because the use of "fucking" is commonest among younger, less educated males), then hey, go ahead.
[*] Who may very well be reading!
Sure, it's a stereotype, and there are exceptions, but statistically, females of older generations are the least likely to use, and least likely to approve of, the word. "Fucking" is among the words in the British National Corpus most clearly distinguishing males from females and most clearly distinguishing younger from older speakers; it is also similarly strongly age-graded in the Santa Barbara Corpus of American Speech, and in the Wellington Corpus of Spoken NZ English.
Lastly, an etymological note. "Fuck" seems to have been used in English for at least 500 years, and related words exist in other Germanic languages. You could try looking up the history in the Oxford English Dictionary (where it hasn't been "banned" since 1972), or even in Wikipedia, before describing it as "Victorian". -
Would that be an accurate assessment?
Rich: Totally. Your analogy could even be extended further: with his behaviour so unsuited to the local culture and conditions, that guy you're with is easily perceived as being like a psycho himself -- enough so that the children aren't willing to approach you, and instead seek protection from... the actual psycho child killers, whom they at least know and are familiar with.
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Eventually she confessed that she just hadn't wanted to be roped into being Brown Owl.
Now there's an organisational philosophy I could get behind.
"Be prepared... with an excuse not to help out..." -
I'm wondering if in part Ralston's rant was set off by the perceived personal insult that Media 7 is/ will be the new Backchat. Remember what happened to Bill's old show?
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actually, I take back my remark above; it'd be cruelty to hedgehogs.
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__we take [Cheney] out back and give him a thorough whaleoiling.__
That is surely illegal in this country?Besides which, anything done to Cheney should be done without benefit of lubricant. And using a shrubbery. And a hedgehog.
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Anybody else notice that fully 1/4 of the XKCD comic archive consists of "your mother" references somewhat more disturbing than the ones that have exercised discussion here?