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Author Topic:   How should one interpret foul language?
Trixie
Member (Idle past 3706 days)
Posts: 1011
From: Edinburgh
Joined: 01-03-2004


(1)
Message 76 of 87 (455173)
02-11-2008 7:11 AM
Reply to: Message 73 by Buzsaw
02-10-2008 8:43 PM


Re: Buzsaw Interpretation Of Foul Language
Buz, you said
People who use these terms should stop and think what they are saying .....
Sometimes a person using these terms does exactly that.
I could have said
Go take a flying fornicate at a rolling donut
Go have flying sexual intercourse with a rolling donut
Go take a flying shag at a rolling donut
Go and flyingly copulate with a rolling donut
And many, many more. However, the expression I chose doesn't have the same grammatical difficulties at the examples given. I would have got the same meaning across if I had said
Bugger off
Piss off
Fuck off
None of those, however, express the feeling that the instruction given is thought, by the writer, to be more productive than the inane drivel being spouted in the first place.
I could have gone all Scottish and said
Away and play on the motorway (freeway for US cousins)/play tig with the traffic
Away and pu' flo'oers (go pick flowers)
Away and claw yer simmit/raffle yer yumyum
Away and boil yer head and fry yer face while yer at it
I don't think I'd have been understood by the majority on this board.
On the other hand
Go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut
is understood by everyone on the board, says exactly what I wanted to say, in the way I wanted to say it and conjures up such a lovely image. Profanity does have it's place and, as said by someone else, it's a lot cheaper than a psychiatrist. Sometimes the topic of discussion is nothing to do with mechanics, science, food, nutrition and everything to do with personal attacks and these personal attacks, while containing no profanity, are more offensive, more insulting, more foul and more immoral/amoral than the use of profanity.
I see the use of profanity as a sign of moral, mental, cultural, and communal depravity. The more it prevails, the more it depraves and corrupts.
You can manage all of this without using profanity. If the only yardstick you are going to use in determining the above is the use of profanity, then you're going to miss alot of moral, mental, cultural and communal depravity.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 73 by Buzsaw, posted 02-10-2008 8:43 PM Buzsaw has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 79 by Buzsaw, posted 02-13-2008 12:03 AM Trixie has replied
 Message 86 by rueh, posted 09-14-2012 10:02 AM Trixie has not replied

  
Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 77 of 87 (455175)
02-11-2008 8:03 AM
Reply to: Message 75 by Buzsaw
02-11-2008 12:19 AM


Re: Buzsaw Interpretation Of Foul Language
Hey Buz,
I certainly understand where you're coming from ("from whence you come" sounds too pedantic even for me - sorry about the dangling participle). As I said, I seldom use profanity, at least in writing. Unless, of course, the use of such in context provides an emphatic, unambiguous, and direct emphasis. Certainly Trixie's use of the idiom served that purpose, in my opinion. Sometimes a nice, short expletive serves well to express a poster's feelings. It can also be cathartic - to which I attribute Trixie's use in the Hill Billy case.
In the same vein, I do occasionally use profanity when I do something stupid (normally, I talk pretty much the way I write, pedantic as that might sound - old habit). The short, explosive exhalation that accompanies words like "shit" and "fuck" really IS cathartic. Just yesterday I bonked my head on the side of a house climbing out of a pit I was digging for a composting latrine. I most assuredly used several appropriate expressions in that case!
There is also another use of profanity - as a medium of creative expression. Although my command of the idiom is woefully limited, I can remember several people of whom I was in total awe at their command of creative invective. I knew a man who could literally swear for five minutes straight without repeating himself once. In short, I disagree with your contention that "nice folks" equates to "no profanity". In the appropriate context, it is a quite useful tool of language.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 75 by Buzsaw, posted 02-11-2008 12:19 AM Buzsaw has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 78 by SGT Snorkel, posted 02-11-2008 11:04 AM Quetzal has not replied
 Message 81 by Buzsaw, posted 02-13-2008 12:46 AM Quetzal has replied

  
SGT Snorkel
Junior Member (Idle past 5704 days)
Posts: 23
From: Boone, IA USA
Joined: 07-25-2006


Message 78 of 87 (455192)
02-11-2008 11:04 AM
Reply to: Message 77 by Quetzal
02-11-2008 8:03 AM


Re: Buzsaw Interpretation Of Foul Language
There is also another use of profanity - as a medium of creative expression. Although my command of the idiom is woefully limited, I can remember several people of whom I was in total awe at their command of creative invective.
Interesting. I once saw a report of an interview George Patton had given. I can't find it, so I won't try to quote, but Patton said something to the effect that he used cuss words when he wanted to be understood and when he wanted to be understood quickly he would give it to the person with both barrels.
A Sergeant Major (now retired) and I were talking about that. I said, "You know, swearing has often been called the language of a fool. The average soldier is woefully under educated. It appears that cussing is possibly the only way to get across orders in a way that everyone can understand them."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 77 by Quetzal, posted 02-11-2008 8:03 AM Quetzal has not replied

Replies to this message:
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Buzsaw
Inactive Member


Message 79 of 87 (455600)
02-13-2008 12:03 AM
Reply to: Message 76 by Trixie
02-11-2008 7:11 AM


Re: Buzsaw Interpretation Of Foul Language
Trixie, what has sexual intercourse got to do with asking someone to leave? That's my point which you appeared to miss. Why demand they go and have sex? Wouldn't it be better to just ask them kindly to leave?
That's why the wisest one who ever lived according to the scriptures outside of Jesus himself, king Solomon said "a soft answer turns away wrath." Wouldn't the world be a better place if more would follow that advice?
The apostle Paul or one of the other apostles also said, "be angry and sin not." Cool One can learn to keep their cool in anger so as to keep the peace. How many victims have been killed over the centuries over meanspirited communication like teenagers on our streets who get into namecalling arguments involving profanity; perhaps even wars where thousands were killed etc.

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 76 by Trixie, posted 02-11-2008 7:11 AM Trixie has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 82 by Trixie, posted 02-13-2008 3:32 AM Buzsaw has not replied

  
Buzsaw
Inactive Member


Message 80 of 87 (455603)
02-13-2008 12:20 AM
Reply to: Message 78 by SGT Snorkel
02-11-2008 11:04 AM


Re: Buzsaw Interpretation Of Foul Language
Sarg, Patton was known for profuse profanity. Other great generals were not. Patton could have shouted orders in a commanding tone and accomplished as much and perhaps more.
I think of coach Tom Landry who led the Cowboys to victorious fame over the years. I doubt that he used profanity to any extent if any during those years.
George Washington who led the colonies to emancipation from tyrany in the bloody Revolution was a very devout Christian who likely never used profanity. I've read much on him and there's no indication that cursed, swore or used any form of profanity.

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by SGT Snorkel, posted 02-11-2008 11:04 AM SGT Snorkel has not replied

  
Buzsaw
Inactive Member


Message 81 of 87 (455606)
02-13-2008 12:46 AM
Reply to: Message 77 by Quetzal
02-11-2008 8:03 AM


Re: Buzsaw Interpretation Of Foul Language
Thanks for the response, Quetzel. Did your head feel any better after the vocal volley?
Neither of my boys now in their 30s use profanity. I made an effort when they were home growing up to keep my cool when things didn't go well for some reason or other. Thankfully it paid off. Between them they have six children in their families and they are training their children also to refrain from profanity. That's the way it works. Children tend to profanity if they grow up hearing their parents using it.
My dad used profanity regularly until he got "saved" by receiving Christ at about age 35. Thereafter he quit that pretty much cold turkey along with the ciggies. There were six of us children in my family, all Christians who do not use profanity. I credit my parents for that. We didn't dare to use it in their hearing so we just learned to express our frustrations without it.
As I've said before, I get along fine with folks, some of who use profanity profusely. My point is that the less it is used the less it is propagated among the youth for the next generation.
Back in the 1930s to about 1960, seldom did one hear any child use prfanity and relatively few women used it out in Wyoming where I grew up. Over the 72 years of my life I've seen it steadily become more prevalent in the home and out by children, women and men. It's one of a number of things which have went downhill in America. That's why I say I see it as a sign of the depravity of a culture.
I'm not a preacher but by not the readers of this likely wish I'd stop preaching so that's all for now. God bless!

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 77 by Quetzal, posted 02-11-2008 8:03 AM Quetzal has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 83 by Quetzal, posted 02-13-2008 8:08 AM Buzsaw has not replied

  
Trixie
Member (Idle past 3706 days)
Posts: 1011
From: Edinburgh
Joined: 01-03-2004


Message 82 of 87 (455614)
02-13-2008 3:32 AM
Reply to: Message 79 by Buzsaw
02-13-2008 12:03 AM


Re: Buzsaw Interpretation Of Foul Language
A soft answer may indeed turn away wrath, however in the thread in question wrath was not the problem but nasty, vicious, snidy responses to soft answers were. Additionally, when soft answers result in more of the same obnoxious behaviour it can be hard to see the merit in giving soft answers.
Additionally it may come as a surprise to you but, guess what? I'm only human, just like every other poster on the board and we all have a point at which we go "ping". I reached mine many posts before I said what I said. My comment was straight, to the point and expressed exactly what I meant it to express in a manner which could not be misunderstood, deliberate misunderstanding being the MO of that particular troll.
I will also point out that Jesus didn't restrict himself to a soft answer when he was confronted by a gaggle of money-changers in the temple. He didn't go back and apologise to them either.
How many victims have been killed over the centuries over meanspirited communication like teenagers on our streets who get into namecalling arguments involving profanity; perhaps even wars where thousands were killed etc.
I think you'll find that most violence has nothing to do with the profanity and everything to do with the namecalling (I'm using only your examples). Insults are insults whether profanity is used or not. Meanspirited communication is meanspirited communication whether it involves the use of profanity or not. For examples of meanspirited communication, see the previous posts in the thread in question. Once you've read that, come back and tell me that my use of profanity was the low point. I don't think you will, since dishonesty, deception, deliberate misrepresentation, malicious mocking and goading lace the posts in question. If you want to see the behaviour that begets anger you need look no further.
In real life, those disposed towards violence are more likely to react to behaviours of that sort, since they are not neutral. Profanity is. The words surrounding profanity determine the mood of the communication, not the profanity itself. All that does is emphasis the intended mood.
Can yu give examples of wars which have begun over the use of profanity? You see, AFAIK, WWI was about expansion and the invasion of a neutral country (see Von Schlieffen plan), WWII was about expansion and world domination, the Korean War was about fighting based on political ideology, Vietnam was about figting political ideology.....you get the picture? Wouldn't it have been better if all the combatants had, instead of fighting, just yelled "FUCK OFF" to each other and walked away?
A soft answer may indeed be good at turning away wrath, it does absolutely nothing (read bugger all if you want to) to turn away an invasion force. You brought up the analogy of violence and war so tell me which wars have started over profanity?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 79 by Buzsaw, posted 02-13-2008 12:03 AM Buzsaw has not replied

  
Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 83 of 87 (455634)
02-13-2008 8:08 AM
Reply to: Message 81 by Buzsaw
02-13-2008 12:46 AM


Re: Buzsaw Interpretation Of Foul Language
Hey Buz,
I really don't disagree completely with your position. As I said, I seldom use profanity. I just think you're overstating the case.
Did your head feel any better after the vocal volley?
I don't know if better really describes it, although the venting was useful in that context. It certainly served as a succinct expression of my feelings about my own stupidity in running into the side of a building head first. It's not as though they put the thing up while I was down in the hole, after all. It also served to draw the attention (and concern) of the pretty Peace Corps volunteer whose house (and latrine) it was. That served a useful purpose in and of itself.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 81 by Buzsaw, posted 02-13-2008 12:46 AM Buzsaw has not replied

  
Minnemooseus
Member
Posts: 3941
From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior)
Joined: 11-11-2001
Member Rating: 10.0


(1)
Message 84 of 87 (673097)
09-13-2012 7:04 PM


A good big copy/paste from another site
Something I just bumbled upon at Nonreligious Questions
His article title:
quote:
I’m not against dirty words. I’m against degrading words that have malicious intent and functions built into them
The entire message:
quote:
Often my posts against using insult words or slurs as part of public debate about ideas {INSERTED NOTE FROM MINNEMOOSEUS - Each of the previous red italicized words are links at the source page} are dismissed on the grounds that I am supposedly overly focused on mere words. There are several different complaints.
One is that words do not matter but how we use them. There is of course an obvious truth in that statement taken by itself. There is nothing inherently wrong even with a harsh word like fuck. It’s good that we keep a lot of emotional charge in the word by not overusing it and abusing it and it’s good that we have recourse to it in any number of circumstances where it can be used to shock or provoke or intensify or otherwise stimulate people. There is also no mysterious intrinsic wrongness to a lot of other such curse (or cuss) words, e.g. shit, ass, or dick.
In fact, these and other similarly vulgar words have a sort of wonderful dialectical tension that gives them their power. They are somewhat arbitrarily forbidden and ruled as impolite and potentially offensive and their forbiddenness in certain contexts is precisely what makes them effective words. Bringing them into contexts they are typically not allowed makes them strong words. The more we relax the general rules of politeness against them and make them entirely ordinary, the more we rob them of their power when we want to use them.
The true defender of harsh and vulgar words wants to keep them as harsh and vulgar words. That means keeping the general politeness norms in place so that the words keep their expressive power on those occasions when we employ them. People who say the word fuck every other word eventually inure those around them to it, after the initial shock. A word becomes too routinized, too ordinary while giving no offense and it loses all of its emotive power.
So, I am for keeping many curse words around. I like that our language has words with emotive thrust. I also think that not using them all the time or, at least, having social rules that specify where they are appropriate and where inappropriate is terrific. This is one of the ways we signal intimacy and formality. Being able to relax the restraints on language or needing to tighten them up is part of adjusting ourselves to the differences of relationships with the people we are talking to and the contexts in which we are talking.
The latitude to curse more loosely with friends is an expression and manifestation of one’s broader comfortability with friends. The restraints in cursing in formal contexts is part of one’s expression and manifestation of respect for social norms generally. And in general, the air of forbiddenness around certain words gives them their force when the time is right to use them. If you love those words, or love having available the functions that they serve for when you want recourse to them, you should usually uphold the general restrictions on their usage that give them their power in the first place.
The words have no magical intrinsic wrongness. The rules about them are on one level arbitrary of course. But once there are meanings and implications associated with words then they have effectiveness. It’s knowing that a word is considered and will be taken by others as generally coarse or informal that makes it your choice to sound coarse or informal when you use it. You know that the social understanding is that you are going to present yourself in this way should you use the word.
And it’s good that we have words set up and at our disposal for when we want to sound coarse or informal. If I want to drop the f bomb for emphasis, it’s good everyone’s properly sensitized so my emphasis is received. If I want to signal to you that I am unusually comfortable with you by talking with relaxed language restraints, it’s great we uphold the understanding about formal language restraints normally.
So, no, I am not pearl clutching prude who cannot handle the coarseness of foul language.
And of course I also understand that you can hurt or insult people in other ways besides using insult words. I get how language works.
So why the stance against insult words from stupid to douchebag?
First of all, the ethical wrongness of these words is not found in politeness rules that arbitrarily (but usefully) rule them coarse. The word fuck is not ethically wrong. It may be ethically wrong to violate politeness norms or treat someone overly coarsely and the word fuck could contribute to that in any number of circumstances. But basically it is just a politeness norm that is against fuck at all.
But there are ethical norms that set me against the words stupid, moron, idiot, imbecile, fucktard, retard, asshole, shithead, douchebag, nigger, faggot, cunt, tranny, bitch, kike, etc.
These words are not merely ruled out by politeness. They are not merely coarse. They are not merely informal. They are not merely emotive. All of that would make them fine in some cases and not in others. Like with the word fuck.
The problem with these words is that, given our linguistic customs, they express hatred and are functionally harmful. They are words intended to hurt and so they are expressions that have malice loaded into them, given our speech norms. Of course, there are exceptions. Some of the slurs listed above can be (or even have been already) reappropriated by their targets. Some people friendly with each other may have understandings that they are using derogatory names as ironic terms of endearment and as long as that’s genuinely how they’re taken, they may be functionally fine.
But it is wrong to express maliciousness itself and insult words do that. They also are degrading, dehumanizing, and falsely essentializing. They dismiss people’s worth too broadly. This makes them false and opposable on truth grounds. Even people with a number of character flaws are not just bad people. Even people who do not comprehend a lot of important truths or who are willfully ignorant are not just stupid.
Let me stress—it is vital that we be able to properly ascribe vices to people. For those who bizarrely accuse me of being an Orwellian language tyrant trying to obscure the truth by taking away the words for expressing it, nothing could be further from reality. I want us to use lots more words. Rather than lumping everyone who says or does something erroneous together in the supposedly irredeemable pile of the stupid people, I want us to be more honest and more precise and more constructive.
Call someone willfully ignorant if that’s what they are. Or figure out if they are just injudicious, shortsighted, biased, undereducated, miseducated, underinformed, misinformed, autistic, suffering from dyslexia or another learning or reading disorder, guilty of a logical contradiction, employing fallacious reasoning, falling prey in a particular instance (or often) to any of several dozen cognitive errors common to all of us, etc.
I am categorically not saying that you should obscure the truth of intellectual errors for the sake of others’ feelings. I am saying that you should not treat people maliciously and with either callous disregard for their feelings or the cruel desire to hurt them. Abusive insult terms for pointing out intellectual mistakes are not just factually descriptive.
In our general linguistic context, they are usually loaded up with hostile emotive content that regularly is intended to hurt and discourage people and regularly functions to do just that quite effectively. Using that language signals you want to hurt. It’s the malice that is unethical, not the truth. (And since these words over essentialize someone’s proneness to error, they are also often untrue also).
It is similar with insults aimed at attacking people’s characters—words like asshole, douchebag, fuckface, and on and on. The English language, for one, has an incredibly rich and varied range of words for precisely describing any number of very particular character flaws someone could have or the wrongness of any particular action.
You can, without the unethical malice of a degrading insult word more targetedly criticize someone or (usually more accurately only a specific action or set of them) as stubborn, callous, cruel, insensitive, lazy, mean, irresponsible, dangerous, reckless, tyrannical, abusive, dishonest, hypocritical, underhanded, cowardly, two-faced, vindictive, nasty, sociopathic, bigoted, misogynistic, racist, flippant, glib, rude, obnoxious, self-centered, self-absorbed, selfish, narcissistic, greedy, egomaniacal, insecure, hostile, ungrateful, unjust, authoritarian, unfair, etc.
This is just the tip of a huge iceberg of precisely targeted, potentially truthful and accurately descriptive words. They can be used in ways that justifiably both convey strong emotions and evoke them in their targets or in others—but without degrading their targets with malicious words.
As long as you are just accurately describing someone in ways that are evidentially supportable then should they get offended and accuse you of undue hostility that’s their problem.
Of course, even in describing someone negatively, we should show some tact and concern for their feelings in many cases if we want them to grow or if we want to have constructive relationships with them. But where a lot is at stake socially and politically it is fine and good in public discourse to call spades spades. And in interpersonal relationships we need to be able, however tactfully, to broach the subject of others’ vices as a matter of our own self-defense if nothing else. We are entitled to request of others that they not treat us poorly. We just should not do so in abusive and degrading ways with insults. But we should do so in targeted ways, with limited accurate describers about the precise natures of how their actions or, in really serious cases their characters themselves, are problematic in one way or another.
So in short it is not dirty words that are the problem. It is not criticism of bad ideas or bad actions that at all needs to be reined in. The problem is the malice loaded inherently into insults and slurs, given the norms of our language. The problem is also that the words are falsely over-essentializing and they are degrading. And good people should refrain from treating others in degrading and malicious fashions as matters of principle. Good people should be very leery of the temptation to become self-righteous people who feel so morally certain of their ideas and/or their moral character that they feel they have license to lash out nastily at others, vent their cruelty, and, in the process become abusive, bad, self-indulgent people themselves.
We see this with those religious people who call others they deem bad sinners and delight in imagining them in hell. It’s an ugly temptation. I am repelled by all cruelty that blinds itself to its own maliciousness by self-deceptively flattering itself by calling itself either moral rightness or honesty.
It is neither.
Your Thoughts?
My "bolding" of one paragraph.
Moose

Professor, geology, Whatsamatta U
Evolution - Changes in the environment, caused by the interactions of the components of the environment.
"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer." - Bruce Graham
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." - John Kenneth Galbraith
"Yesterday on Fox News, commentator Glenn Beck said that he believes President Obama is a racist. To be fair, every time you watch Glenn Beck, it does get a little easier to hate white people." - Conan O'Brien
"I know a little about a lot of things, and a lot about a few things, but I'm highly ignorant about everything." - Moose

Replies to this message:
 Message 85 by Stile, posted 09-14-2012 9:39 AM Minnemooseus has seen this message but not replied

  
Stile
Member
Posts: 4295
From: Ontario, Canada
Joined: 12-02-2004


(1)
Message 85 of 87 (673129)
09-14-2012 9:39 AM
Reply to: Message 84 by Minnemooseus
09-13-2012 7:04 PM


A novel about nothing
Some weenie writes:
The true defender of harsh and vulgar words wants to keep them as harsh and vulgar words. That means keeping the general politeness norms in place so that the words keep their expressive power on those occasions when we employ them. People who say the word fuck every other word eventually inure those around them to it, after the initial shock. A word becomes too routinized, too ordinary while giving no offense and it loses all of its emotive power.
I never understand this arguement.
Whatever sense I can see in it is basically "if the word is used a lot, then it loses it's power."
Which can be taken two ways:
1. The majority of people in the location under context are swearing often.
-This would only serve to make someone who doesn't swear often stand out like a sore thumb. Then, when that person actually does swear the power in that word use would be magnified.
2. A few individuals are swearing often and "lowering the power of the word for everyone else"... somehow.
-If this is the situation (which it generally is), then the swearword isn't being overused in the first place so it doesn't make any sense at all.
If a few individuals swear a lot... that doesn't mean the words are being overused. That's the definition of "a few individuals"... that means that a very low number of people are actually doing it. A few individuals swearing as often as possible does not make those words "overused" for any total forum. It does, however, make it glaringly obvious that other people are not swearing often... in which case (again) it's making the use of swearwords more powerful for those who use restraint.
Conclusion:
If word usage is linked to power and you are concerned with that power, all you have to do is use personal restraint to use those words less and their power will increase whenever you do decide to use them. If any number of other people use those words it only serves to highlight how little you use it yourself. In fact, your best case scenario would be if everyone else uses those words all the time. Then it would be exceptionally obvious that you never swear. And then, when you do... by golly the "power" of that usage would be higher than when Johnny said that thing to that teacher in grade 2.
Obviously, if you ascribe to this "words have a power level and we need to protect it" idea, then there is no rational reason for you to request other people to stop swearing.
The only reason behind using such an argument is an attempt to control other people's use of certain words because you yourself are judging other people to some standard you've got shoved up your own ass. So fuck off.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 84 by Minnemooseus, posted 09-13-2012 7:04 PM Minnemooseus has seen this message but not replied

  
rueh
Member (Idle past 3662 days)
Posts: 382
From: universal city tx
Joined: 03-03-2008


Message 86 of 87 (673130)
09-14-2012 10:02 AM
Reply to: Message 76 by Trixie
02-11-2008 7:11 AM


rolling donuts
I could have said
Go take a flying fornicate at a rolling donut
Go have flying sexual intercourse with a rolling donut
Go take a flying shag at a rolling donut
Go and flyingly copulate with a rolling donut
Sorry this doesn't add much to the discussion but it's way to much fun to pass on. My favorite is
aeronautical intercourse with a pirouetting perforated pastry
:{)}}}
Edited by rueh, : No reason given.

'Qui non intelligit, aut taceat, aut discat'
The mind is like a parachute. It only works when it is open.-FZ
The industrial revolution, flipped a bitch on evolution.-NOFX
It takes all kinds to make a mess- Benjamin Hoff

This message is a reply to:
 Message 76 by Trixie, posted 02-11-2008 7:11 AM Trixie has not replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


(1)
Message 87 of 87 (673142)
09-14-2012 2:06 PM


I looked back at what the hell I wrote in this thread to make sure I wasn't repeating myself....
"Vulgar" basically means "common". The Vulgate Bible was written in the vulgar or common tongue, the language of the people, Latin, instead of the original Hebrew and Greek.
When the Normans conquered England the old Anglo-Saxon words for bodily functions, etc. which were often four letters long, were replaced by their Norman French equivalents, which were typically much more long-winded and thus sounded more cultured. The Anglo-Saxon words, spoken by the commoners, were "vulgar". The more acceptable versions used by the upper classes were derived from the Latin, which had ceased to be vulgar.
Now centuries later in Canada we have a House of Commons, populated by commoners, where it's improper to call somebody a liar. Rather, he's "misleading the House", which is apparently more acceptable because it's more long-winded.
As many of you know, I'm a bit anal about words (which isn't quite the same as being an asshole).
Edited by ringo, : @#$% spelling.

  
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