American censorship

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Why is cursing censored in U.S. as opposed to many european countries?

I remember back in the old days, when watching American television (ie. documentaries, news etc.) they'd put a *beep* sound for every swearing. I don't get it. WrongPlanet censors such words as well. I'll have to write s* h i t to get the word shown. I don't know if American TV use *beep* sounds anymore, but I found the beep-noise a lot more annoying than the actual cursing.

We don't have that problem in many northern european countries. Americans always talk about their so-called "free speech"... I don't get it.

At a guess, it may simply be a case of adhering to media legislation...
Perhaps it needs changing?

Have you ever played the First Person Shooter game: Battlefield?
They use the f**k word profusely...
The battle against swearing seems to be lost...
About bloody time, imo...

4 letter words are just that...
Words made up of 4 letters...
It is the attitude behind the words which is actually the offensive aspect, but there are still a lot of naive/unenlightened people who haven't realised that...
Silly c***s...

Dude..

You don't need to do that extra typing ( that "s" plus "hit" thing you do). All of us natives of the US, UK, Australia, etc, will recognize "s**t" as the S-bomb. We native English speakers all know what word you're using even after its been visually "bleeped" the way it is on websites like this.

In fact that is part of the irony of it. Since we all know what word the writer is using it makes you wonder why they even bother censoring it.

Last edited by naturalplastic on 06 May 2019, 7:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think a small part of it is that we're more religious than the European countries are, and people think that cussing is a gateway to drugs and fornication.

When South Park premiered, the religious right was up in arms because of the language, and when the Big Gay Al episode premiered, one group was issuing pamphlets that said that if kids watched SP, it would keep that group from spreading the Gospel. The Parents' Television Council routinely list Family Guy as "worst show of the week", and even asked the FCC to take it off the air on a few occasions. The Simpsons is probably only tolerated because Ned Flanders is seen as someone to emulate.

On the other side, there are people on the left who are afraid that someone's feelings will be hurt in some way, like the whole controversy with Apu on the Simpsons, and then "Stark Raving Dad" being removed from the schedule because of Leaving Neverland.

I'd prefer it if people didn't swear at all, but that's not gonna happen. People curse all the time now in everyday conversation. I guess they think it makes them look "edgy" or whatever. I think it's gross.

Oh I can tolerate some off-color words, but when people use the F word and that word meaning feces all the time it puts some very unpleasant literal images in my head.

Ah yes, the Great American Bible Belt is infamous...

Because the Protestant Christian Fundamentalists still think that America is a Christian nation, when it obviously isn't.

You state you are 45...
We grew up in a different age...
How influenced are you as a result of your childhood indoctrination?

The "kids" these days will grow up in a more relaxed culture in regards to swearing...
And as a result, I can see them taking it in their stride with it having little emotional impact...
They are only words after all...

The same sort of thing happened in some of the more progressive countries in Europe in regards to pornography, etc where sex crimes fell drastically due to the de-mystification process...

Besides, if a TV show can compel people to fornicate, it's a sign I need to watch it more.

Most people are for free expression until it is about something they find offensive. America’s roots are in puritanical religions so more are offended about anything to do with bodily functions then in other places.

Actually a lot of the things over from the US wouldn't be allowed to be made by the BBC.

Especially the English BBC which used to have great comedy but is totally neutered now. If you want proper comedy from the UK these days, ask a Scot like Frankie Boyle.

S... is controversial in English speaking countries cos we've decided the Anglo Saxon word is swearing and the Latin word isn't, in English. In other languages, bodily fluids only have one word. Imagine if you couldn't say any word for it, so impractical. We can say poo/poop for humour and we can say defecation or excrement to doctors. I say s... all the time but we don't have to in order to talk about that.

Despite Anglo Saxons running things nowadays, or whites in the States etc, it comes out of colonialism. The Romans decided that the Anglo Saxons using their own words was dirty, then the Normans decided the same thing. We have other egs of it too. Pork on the plate, pig on the field because the rich Norman who was eating it didn't interact with the living animal that the Anglo Saxon farmer reared, just ate it.

I see that here too at times.

I've seen words like a**hole be translated to the ridiculous fjøsnisse (literally barn goblin, it's a mythological creature and no 'bad' word at all), making it sound like made up profanity for kids. It's lame.

Personally I have no problems with profanity, and I definitely think that if a profanity word is used, it should be translated to mean something correlating. We don't need it softened

I'm 41 and kids definitely swore in the 80's and had a fairly relaxed relationship with swear words.

I always find it funny that South Park bleeps out the F word but not the N word.

I'm a former Navy sailor. One of the most impressive things I've ever witnessed was a Senior Chief informing a Seaman exactly what he thought of the Seaman's ancestry, intelligence, personal hygiene, sexual habits, work ethic, and general incompetence. The Chief went on for like 15 minutes, never once repeating himself, and never once using a profane word. That poor sailor was all teary-eyed and shaking (he was in his 20s) by the time the Chief was done.

One of the least impressive things I witness on an almost daily basis is people who use profane words as adjectives, adverbs, pronouns and commas, as if they've never picked up and read a dictionary or a thesaurus.

So what if you can "swear like a sailor"? If you have nothing to say, then say nothing. Don't try to fill the silence with a vocabulary that consists solely of George Carlin's "7 Words You Can't Say On Television".

You're making me think back to my childhood, I was taught not to swear, and handled it easily enough. I was allowed to swear once for every parental swear, which I think is a far better motivator for the parent than a silly swear jar which the parent could rattle off a stream of swear words and barely feel the punishment. You don't want the child to swear, the child gets to swear if you do and that means you feel your failure as a parent. Swear words were rare in the house.

I had a very advanced vocabulary for my age when I entered school, but lots of kids swore freely, and many looked down on you if you didn't as a p****, so swearing was kind of forced into my vocabulary at school unfortunately. I definitely swear less than most people, but I feel sad about it right now, because it is indeed impressive when someone uses effective language like you described without swearing, but like I said in a recent post on here about me being impressed with a forum mod doing it to another forum mod who abused their power, and settling the matter with that one post, I could not have made that post myself. Swear words have become my go to words in too many instances.

Three views on profanity:

"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer." -- Mark Twain

"Profanity is the effort of a feeble brain to express itself forcibly." -- Spencer W. Kimball

"Profanity is to language as salt is to food. Too much will give you high blood pressure. Too little and it gets really f*****g bland." -- Micah R. Sisk