Can't ban Yosimite Sam

Cursing. What a strange phenomenon. And what an even stranger meme behind it's censorship.

I have struggled, if that's not to strong a word, over the years with 'cursing'. I don't mean i struggled with cursing when i didn't want to, but rather whether or not to curse at all. Over those same years i have occupied many of the  intermediaries on the spectrum of cursing, from saintly to foul. I remember a time where a curse word, usually 'fuck' or one of it's derivitives, was in nearly every sentence i spoke. I also remember a point where i wouldn't even say 'gosh darn it' because it was essentially the same as 'God damn it' - same meaning, different words. Currently I am in between those extremes, probably just under the socially acceptable mode. Mostly because cursing too much lessens it's impact and for me that's what it's all about.

What brought this long running internal debate to the forefront and onto the blog page, was a trend i have been seeing - the use of alternative words for cursing. I first noticed it in Serenity, the movie for the Sci-fi TV series Firefly (both of which are utterly excellent, by the way, and i completely recomend them for viewing.) In both the movie and the series they used words like gorramn in phrases like, ' i don't give a good gorramn what he thinks!' and rut or hump for fuck or screw. Also, in Battlestar Galactica (a passable sci-fi series, with fairly interesting questions on the nature of 'human') they use frak heavily in place of fuck, including frakked (sp?) and frakking(sp?), though i don't think i've heard fraks yet.

This alone would not have been more than an  interesting quirk of science fiction being able to side step the FCC, but i have started to see these words in real usage, mostly in forums and boards where cursing is not allowed. So now we have these words side stepping social convention on what a curse word are! The exclamation is from excitement, not shock. :)  And it seems to be a full fledge meme, as more than just those words from the shows are appearing - people are starting to modify or come up with there own! HAHAHA! Take that you stuffy ol' bastards.

These words are slightly different that the traditional replacements, like the benign Flanderesqe (As in Ned Flanders - hey, i made a new word :) ) 'gosh darnit's and the like because they are used with the exact same pathos as the words they are replacing. They are still cursing just using different words. A curse word in Spanish is still a curse word, so too are these new supposedly meaningless words. What a farce, they have all the meaning of the originals.

I took long enough, but here is my point. It's an impossible task to censor 'bad words' and as such it's an erroneous philosphy to try, young children being the exception that defines the rule ( i think i'm using that right ).

Media is simple - allow them to say anything they want and then catagorize the product . Natural selection will take over, and products that don't want to scare off certain users will not have offensive language and products that aren't harmed by it will. (this should work with violence, sex, and any other censorship issue)

[total side note on catagorizing. the movie Spirit: Stallion of the Cimerron is rated G with the additional warning of 'mild peril'. think about it.]

The public world is a bit trickier. Why would people be offended by saying "That's fucked up." and not offended by "That's frakked up."? My first guess is that it's a meme, one that has survived for so long due solely to lack of any competeing memes, that places the emphasis on WORD in 'bad word' and not BAD. There is no difference if i call somebody dumb, a dummy, a dumshit, or a dum'shyt; they are all offensive and should only be used for the express purpose of offending. Further when parents tell there children not to say those words, it's not the words they should focus on but rather the entent to hurt, a child should not be allowed to say bee-yotch just because it's not the word bitch. (I actually heard a child, a child!, say this standing right next to what i assume was his parent, and she did nothing. I am going to hope that this pair is not the norm.) In my opinion a parent shouldn't be anymore upset if their child calls the neighbors kid a retard or a fucktard, that's not to say they shouldn't be concerned and address the situation.

I'm going to go further out on a limb, and say that perhaps cursing should be taught, in a manner of speaker, something that, as they grow into adulthood, they have a better grasp of the concept itself as opposed to a strict prohibition of a list of arbitrary words.

Comments

[Lance]

The frilling ear of the beholder. (Farscape reference)

On a side note, I call all of my closest friends Fags, Bitches, Fuck-heads and other derogatory/racial/religious names that I won't type because the PC police are keeping me down.

Peace Out Ho!

[Jake]

Cursing rules. I have one of the worst mouths I know of. I often wonder why I curse so much. Maybe because I was the youngest of 3 brothers and it always helped me fit in by making their friends laugh when they heard a 6 year old say "fuck that fat fucking bitch". But now that I'm older, I still enjoy using cusswords freely. In fact, I often find it hard to trust and/or relate to people who don't cuss. My main thing is, why get offended by a word? It's the intended meaning, not the word itself, that makes it a "curse".

[MathJames]

Exactly.

[Lisha]

so, i kind of disagree. I think cussing is just a way to try to make yourself sound cool and mature, but truly I don't respect anyone who cusses simply bacause they don't know how to handle themselves and it's quite childish to try and call someone a bad name to try to make yourself feel better...