Allow innocuous usage of f-word!

[Del Arroyo]

I know that the moderators here at the Org try to keep things clean, and with good reason. I understand their job is unpaid and they try to do their best. It has been a wise Org policy to try and cleanse the "f-word" from the forums.

But-- the fact is that, in modern English, there are many different usages for the "f-word", some definitely vulgar and insulting, and others which are fairly harmless. For instance "f you!" is a bad usage. "I f-ed her till she was raw" would also be considered quite vulgar.

But there is at least one usage, in which "f-ing" is used to add a certain extra emphasis to a statement, which is not harmful to anyone in particular and which I doubt anyone would be offended by. For instance: "Best f-ing thread ever!" or "F yeah!".

Now, in both of the above cases, it is easy to make the argument that there are perfectly equivalent alternatives that don't require the "f-word"-- i.e. "Best goddamn thread ever!" and "Hell yeah!". But consider the following examples--

"F-ing awesome!" and "F-ing sweeeet!"-- for which there are no really equivalent alternatives. "Pretty damn awesome" would be acceptable, but just wouldn't have the same resonance. And there is certainly NO alternative to the classic-- "un F-ING believable!"

So what do you all think? There might be some ambiguity to rise from such a policy, especially as many of our moderators are not native speakers of English-- but nothing so serious, I don't think, that it couldn't be worked out. And the moderators word is always final-- nothing is going to change there.

And really, in the end, we all come here to have fun. Very few people here actually look to start trouble. A calm, civil poster who uses the "f-word" in one of the above-given ways is not trying to start a fight. What is the real purpose of censuring good forum citizens who haven't hurt anyone?

No harm, no foul-- a sound policy for the Org.

DA

[therother]

It is entirely possible to add extra emphasis to a statement without resorting to profanity. This is not a place where you can let such words slip out unintentionally. To submit a post requires deliberate action, and hopefully some deliberation, and I therefore think the staff are entitled to expect Members to adapt their language to the tone and atmosphere of the Org. And profane words are not in keep with that.

[Beirut]

My Frontroom jihad is aimed directly at swearing. My policy, as far as BKS allows it, is ruthless zero tolerance for swearing.

The way I see it, and as I have explained it to several members, there are 85,769,341,452 sites that allow swearing. The Frontroom does not. If you feel the overwhelming urge to say ****, then go to the bathroom, look deeply into the mirror and say it as many times as you like. Your freedom is absolute.

But in the Frontroom.... no swearing. Is it really that much of a burden for people to abstain from writing **** in a public post? If so, then a weak mind is the only excuse.

[TosaInu]

Swearing is normal in several places of society. So normal, that you often won't notice the swearing/insult. Don't check a dictionary: anyone of you know what nigger means?

"Best goddamn thread ever!" and "Hell yeah!" qualify as swearing too.

You can use styles, color, fontsize, different fonts, highlighted text, text formating, smileys or plain acceptable English to put emphasis on something.

Dutch is, related to English, a very poor language. Yet, I can say anything in Dutch without swearing. It's very hard to believe, that a language with a twice as large vocabulaire, can't do better.

[edyzmedieval]

Swearing is normal in several places of society. So normal, that you often won't notice the swearing/insult. Don't check a dictionary: anyone of you know what nigger means?

"Best goddamn thread ever!" and "Hell yeah!" qualify as swearing too.

You can use styles, color, fontsize, different fonts, highlighted text, text formating, smileys or plain acceptable English to put emphasis on something.

Dutch is, related to English, a very poor language. Yet, I can say anything in Dutch without swearing. It's very hard to believe, that a language with a twice as large vocabulaire, can't do better.

Tosa has a great point here, and Beirut also.

Tosa, at least I know what that means.(very offensive, especially for black people)

[Del Arroyo]

Yes, there are many other forums on the net, I have visited many of them, and I do very much appreciate the state of things at the Org. But what makes the Org different is not its greater number of prohibitions-- indeed, most other forums simply have an automatic filter that bleeps out cursewords, and troublesome members are regularly banned and banned again. What makes the Org different is its level of freedom, coupled with individual accountability on the part of posters.

I understand and appreciate that this model requires active moderation. All I'm saying is that there may arrive a point at which the mods have done their job and should simply refrain. We are, after all, here to have fun.

DA

[Azi Tohak]

My Frontroom jihad is aimed directly at swearing. My policy, as far as BKS allows it, is ruthless zero tolerance for swearing.

The way I see it, and as I have explained it to several members, there are 85,769,341,452 sites that allow swearing. The Frontroom does not. If you feel the overwhelming urge to say ****, then go to the bathroom, look deeply into the mirror and say it as many times as you like. Your freedom is absolute.

But in the Frontroom.... no swearing. Is it really that much of a burden for people to abstain from writing **** in a public post? If so, then a weak mind is the only excuse.

I fully support the .org on this. There is no CAUSE to swear for any reason. Ever. I don't care what you are trying to express, there is a fully competent analog that can be used in polite company. Any expletive is extraneous, that is part of the definition of expletive.

ex·ple·tive: An exclamation or oath, especially one that is profane, vulgar, or obscene.

A word or phrase that does not contribute any meaning but is added only to fill out a sentence or a metrical line.
Linguistics. A word or other grammatical element that has no meaning but is needed to fill a syntactic position, such as the words it and there in the sentences It's raining and There are many books on the table.

To be honest, a fully crack down on anything considered vulgar wouldn't bother me a bit, but it might bug some other people. Not allowing swearing is good policy considering that it helps keep the forums at a much higher level than the other forums I frequent.

Azi

[Papewaio]

Remember the age range 10 to 80.

So if you find it okay to say the f word in front of your niece, grandma and pastor then I think you belong to a very unusual strata of society.

[Beirut]

What makes the Org different is its level of freedom, coupled with individual accountability on the part of posters.


DA

Exactly!

[King Henry V]

Don't you f****** get it? If you ******* don't stop using the f****** f*** word, Beirut is going to ******* come down and beat your f****** a***. Got that? The f- word is in all uses inappropraite, irrespectful and vulgar.

[Kaiser of Arabia]

Hell really can't be considered a curse though, I don't think. I mean, it's a noun, like heaven. Is heaven a curse? I don't get it.

And damn is a verb in certain cases. So...yeah.

Other than that, i'm happy

[Gawain of Orkeny]

But in the Frontroom.... no swearing. Is it really that much of a burden for people to abstain from writing **** in a public post? If so, then a weak mind is the only excuse.

Does this mean I can repost my links in the Backroom?

To be honest, a fully crack down on anything considered vulgar wouldn't bother me a bit,

Vulgar is in the eye of the beholder. Im sure many a chrstain parent would be appalled to find there child reading some of the things that have been said about their religion on these boards and find them much more vulgar than any curse word. Not to mention the Babe thread.

It seems we now have two threads in here on the same topic by the way.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

No he did not.

I refer you to my post in the Watchtower Backroom.

BKS was painfully fair in this matter and it is unfair of you to criticize him like this. Further discussions may be by PM or in the Watchtower.
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Yes he did. He took out ones with no curse words at all. He pmed me and asked if I wanted him to edit what he thought objectionable. He made no mention of deleting it all and on top of that leave one of the most objectionable links. Youve been out in the woods to long it seems.

[Beirut]

And you are going out of your way to pick a fight for no real reason at all.

You had ample opportunity to help fix this situation and you ignored every chance given to you. I think BKS was more than fair given the circumstances.

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

I took out the ones without swearing by mistake, unfortunately. My finger slipped, I'm only human.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

And you are going out of your way to pick a fight for no real reason at all.

Im not picking a fight Im having a conversation. At least I thought I was. PS I have a reason for this conversation

You had ample opportunity to help fix this situation and you ignored every chance given to you.

I cant fix what I dont see as broken . Thats your job. I asked BKS to either tell my exactly what was objectionable or to remove it himself. He chose the later.

I took out the ones without swearing by mistake, unfortunately. My finger slipped, I'm only human.

I appeciate your honesty and in that case I forgive you. That is if your telling the truth and just didnt take the lazy way out

[hoom]

Hell really can't be considered a curse though, I don't think. I mean, it's a noun, like heaven. Is heaven a curse? I don't get it.

Thoroughly agree with this.
Nothing wrong with hell being used.

[PseRamesses]

I do agree with Tosa, and others, and firmly belive that a proper and correct usage of the english language should be maintained at all times. If uncertain, when posting, use spell check or a dictionary, I do. H_ll ;) it has even increased my vocabulary.
What worries me though is the total degeneration of the spoken language. Not even the english but even my own, Swedish, is getting corrupted and brought down to a level of language that illiterates or uneducated people speak. Ex: Why should I copy the language of the hip-hop culture? Why should I replace all adjectives with swears or cursing when there is a whole range of my language to be used and explored. I´m trying to explain this to my two teenage daughters that constantly comes home from school saying sh_t, h_ll, f_ck, what, dude, sort of etc etc in EVERY sentence. So starting this summer I introduced a game, that my grandfather thought me when I was a boy. At breakfast, every morning, they read a dictionary and learn 10 new words and have a goal to use them during the day to some extent. This is turning out so well that their friends actually comes to them asking them what an unknown word means which really is a confidence booster.
The Swedish academy predicts that at least one swedish word disappears per day due to unsatisfying education, street-talks and the invasion of english words in our daily lives. This is not acceptable. We have to fight to keep the diversity and richness of our languages alive.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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I tell you, there's NOONE left speaking Turkish proper over here. Even worse than vocabulary and all, the unique phonetics is gone.
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[Simetrical]

Change in language should not be shunned. Our languages are built on the slang and informal talk of centuries past. How many people cringed at the use of pea as a singular when it first developed? How many people railed against the increasing usage of the plural you to refer to even peasants in the singular, when it was formerly a mark of respect and deference? For that matter, what about the people who complained about the shifting of the traditional [p] and [t] and [k] of Proto-Indo-European to the [f] and [ð] and [x] of Proto-Germanic, giving us father instead of pater?

There is no reason for language to be static.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Change of the language is one thing, degeneration of it along with mindsets and reduction of the amount of daily used words and phrases to severe mnimums is another. The prior is natural and inevitable, the latter should be prevented at all costs.
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[Reverend Joe]

Why does this keep coming up? It will not get anywhere!

As I can personally attest, cursing is not allowed, nor should it be allowed, on the Org. If you feel the urge to curse, just take a second, and think, should I even be posting here? There is a reason that I just stopped reading the politica/social threads in the backroom: that is how I got my warning level, and I do not want another. Also, note how many warning levels regular backroom posters have, like PanzerJaeger.

[Simetrical]

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Change of the language is one thing, degeneration of it along with mindsets and reduction of the amount of daily used words and phrases to severe mnimums is another. The prior is natural and inevitable, the latter should be prevented at all costs.
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What's the difference? What are the criteria for "degeneration"?

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Oversimplification, in terms of the average number of words and phrases used daily (we're talking about less than 500 here); disconnection between mind and speech (rudimentary use of random words/phrases to mean anything anytime); overuse of "side words" (made up the term to mean words with no meaning alone but in context); a total absence of semantics; diminishing of binding structure (ie grammar, syntax etc.) to chaos...

If we believe that language evolved from meaningless sounds of early primates, then it's now returning back to its roots in my land.
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[Reverend Joe]

Is Turkish getting that bad? Or are you talking about English? Because English I can understand.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Yes, it's Turkish that has already got that bad and going worse.
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[L`zard]

What's the difference? What are the criteria for "degeneration"?

'Just my take': Anything that would aggrevate your parents, yet adds no additional content to your message, in this case.......

I vaguely remember some quote that runs: "Anyone that cannot offer a response without swearing is an illiterate M*+%#@&@*&" or something like that. Prolly george carlin or similar.....

For myself, 'twould seem that the additional effort of typing swear-words into a msg would be it's own penalty, but some folk don't find it so, which makes me wonder what else dispicable efforts they're willing to go to, eh?

Euphimisms were made for places like the .org forums, and can often have considerably more 'hit power' if used with cunning.

[Simetrical]

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Oversimplification, in terms of the average number of words and phrases used daily (we're talking about less than 500 here);

How is simplicity bad? And how did you count that, did you do a study?

disconnection between mind and speech

That has nothing to do with the particular kind of language used.

(rudimentary use of random words/phrases to mean anything anytime); overuse of "side words" (made up the term to mean words with no meaning alone but in context)

What's wrong with nonce words? They can often be very useful. I believe Germans like using them a lot, by combining multiple words into a neologism.

a total absence of semantics

There's no such thing as a total absence of semantics. There is such a thing as large shifts in meaning such that it would be difficult for you to understand someone speaking this way, but these "degenerates" can understand each other perfectly well, no doubt.

diminishing of binding structure (ie grammar, syntax etc.) to chaos...

Again, change is not diminishing. African-American Vernacular English, for instance, is every bit as regular in grammar and syntax as Standard English, it's just different. One who is not attuned to the nuances of AAVE may miss out on a significant amount of the meaning, but that doesn't reduce the dialect's intrinsic value.

If we believe that language evolved from meaningless sounds of early primates, then it's now returning back to its roots in my land.
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Measured how? As I see it, the only really worthwhile property of language is the ability to communicate effectively. These people you speak of can communicate with 100% effectiveness with each other, I assure you. I challenge you to provide any evidence to the contrary. They can't communicate as easily with you, perhaps, but that's no more their fault than yours.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Simetrical, with all due respect;

Forgetting humility fo a moment, I'm a very literate person in my own language. I know it very well, both in its historical development and recent usage. Depending on my knowledge, I can firmly state that it's degenerating and detoriorating.

You asked my criteria differing degeneration from change in its natural course and I believe I have answered. Your further query seems to me as pointless debate. I shall not debate any further about a fact that I believe have clearly observed and stated.

Respectfully
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