discussion about swearing/rules regarding swearing

Post Reply New Topic

Is it best to keep autistic kids hidden from everything the world might expose them to? Also I can understand having an issue with excessive swearing, or calling people names involving swearing. However I think maybe you should try to see it from the perspective is some people occasionally swear in their general speech as it might be the best way they can express the point...they aren't always out to offend you.

Do you seriously think they are not exposed to that through the tv, or movies, or books, or the school system?

What on earth could possibly be construed as offensive or attacking about what I said to you?

I made an assumption. You asked me not to. I apologised, and explained on what logical basis I had erroneously made it. There were no hidden meanings.

I even included happy smileys to indicate there was no animosity.

Am I missing something here?

Are you confusing me with somebody else? Or was it a joke I'm not picking up on?



Goodness me!



And I thought I had been brought up well. No one told me crap was bad.

I don't understand why these things vary so much from family to family and region to region.

It's like the "lunch, dinner, tea, supper" thing.



As somebody else said, it's useful to know what others find offensive so you can avoid offending them even if you are not offended by it yourself. It's interesting to discover how it varies.



The meanings are no different but the word chosen displays the intent behind the speaker's words. Calling somebody a blameless illegitimate child of an unfortunate victim of sex trade trafficking in the literal sense displays tact and compassion, whereas calling someone a bastard son of a whore in the non-literal sense displays aggression and a desire to offend and hurt people's feelings. Likewise, s**t is often used not in the literal meaning of the word, but as a derogatory adjective to dismiss or insult what somebody has said or done. e.g. "I'm afraid I don't quite agree with a few of your points" displays tact, whereas "that's all just a big pile of s**t" displays aggression, lack of tolerance, impatience, rudeness, etc. They are not literally saying that everything that's just come out of the person's mouth is a pile of stinky poop.

Kjas, I am sorry to hear about what was behind your post but I had no way of knowing and I was not picking on you deliberately by quoting it. You just happened to be the first person to swear (by my definition, at least) after I'd started discussing swearing with Tequila. I was entering that particular thread in an experimental fashion to see if there was swearing in it or if I should go back to the Clean Chat Thread. So then I saw your post and I thought "oh no."

I'm sorry to hear you're being stalked and physically attacked. I hope things work out.

I do agree with all_white in that the rules are there to be enforced or removed.
If they are more rigorously enforced I would refrain from using bad language completely; if they are removed, well it's the administration's choice
I think the line is fairly easy to draw as to what shouldn't be allowed, and that's the words that contain asterisks (providing it does it automatically, doesn't it?)

The only way we can beat swear words is by taking them back! So from now on refer to kittens as "F*ckers", poop as "Sh*t", etc

Not really. BS, s**t

Fair enough, I didn't know - The administrators of a forum are usually in charge of what gets censored and what doesn't, so really, they should be enforcing the rule, if indeed it should remain.

It not as simple as they should have the rule or they shouldn't. There is the middle ground of they should have the rule and be given the discretion to know when it's necessary to use it. Otherwise there could be no rule and the swearing could be horrendous and offensive and they wouldn't be able to do anything because there is no rule saying otherwise. Or the rule is enforced and someone gets banned for using words which are not in least bit offensive in their mind. Common sense is better than absolute black and white rules.

My two cents, in some ways the swear filter is pointless, but it's also a liability issue.

That would be an issue for Alex, and it's been my experience that he's very reluctant to edit the TOS even when it contains contradictions that make the mods' lives difficult. Just try and get two people to agree on what constitutes "offensive", let alone getting into some of the other generalities in there.

alex decided which swears are unacceptable, and he added a swear filter to keep those particular ones out.


if people evade the swear filter they are breaking the rules.


also, if a person swears AT another member it is usually considered a personal attack and breaks the rules.


and if a post contains a lot of swears without much other useful content, it can sometimes be considered offensive.


but the last point above is extremely variable and a post would be more or less offensive depending on which subforum it occurs in, what happened prior to that post, the context of the thread, etc.

Exactly why I wanted to move there since I was 14.

And olives for me, please.

Anchovies

Ironically, this thread probably contains more cursewords than any other on the site right now.

I went through this on another forum years ago. the admins politely asked us to be mindful of our inappropriate use of language and it turned into a "well what about ****? is **** allowed? Why can't I say ******** if he can say bloody?" discussion. Nobody got the point!! !! As a result, we ended up having auto filters for all sorts of words.

Compare it to a 'smart-casual' dress policy at work; people start pushing the boundaries and using the grey area as their defense for showing up in casual dress. Low and behold, you can see what's coming next; specific guidelines are brought in and the whole smart-casual policy is undermined.

yeah, let's try the "enforce it or don't bother approach" rule! It would make great sense for mods to devote their free time to warning someone for saying *** three times in one month whilst spammers, trolls, and potential groomers prevail in the background. I'm sure this is in our younger members' best interests

[edit] just realised my last paragraph was a tad facetious. do take it in jest (in a world where emoticons and manners grant you a license to be condescending, I think I'll slip under the radar here )

Too much pizza on this thread ! I fancy a curry instead.

But back to the important issue

If we consider the ideas behind the Miller test (see US law on porn) it has the question

'Whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards", would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,'

In the same way for swearing the problem is that contemporary community standards do differ greatly from one place to another. While there are some words which are very offensive in english to almost all english speakers, the degree of offense caused by a curse word will varry greatly from one place to another.

Sadly I can offer no solution to this problem.

This is quite an interesting overview of the way various countries dealt with the controversial novel Lady Chatterly's Lover: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Chatt ... ontroversy

In the UK obscenity trial of the publishers, I should think this rather silly episode acted as something of a wake-up call:

That was in 1960 - modern history - not 1760.

Only 16 years later what was judged obscene enough to be banned and warrant a full court case is now this:Morecambe and Wise, for non-UK residents who may be asking "who they?", were an old-school comedy act of the traditional, very warm and friendly, extremely family-safe humour style. They were utterly inoffensive - and also very funny.

So yes indeed - contemporary community standards not only vary between countries, they also evolve and mature within countries.

(Bhindi bhaji.)

And I think you did provide a solution. The contemporary community standards are those of WP, as laid out in the rules which each member read and agreed with, before they joined.