RE: (idm) Vulgarity or Incoherence?

From Kelley Hackett
Sent Tue, Oct 5th 1999, 14:08

Very salient point that U bring up, as ususal Mr. Upton.
I just have a few questions first off, no disrespect on either side of the
fence, but how can words be aggressive?
  Consider that a word is a word.  These that U see before the screen cant
harm you, or move, or fight or kill.......I find it disturbing that people
make statements like this.......perpetuating a damn Mind-set!

Still, I fully understand Irenes issue, with children, considering the
future and well-being of her family and all......but we can choose many
things like this we can point to.....

Civility, ha ha, I dont think the present culture is even close to
practicing this concept..
Although, many would like to believe otherwise....

Still, I believe its just another expression that some attempt to use
to convey meaning......and the issue is problematic to say the least.....but
just like
we choose to ignore other gross things such as discrimination, inequalities,
and the like--cursing
becomes only a frivolous matter......

--not even two cents worth--

Hk!


> -----Original Message-----
> From:        Michael Upton [SMTP:xxx.xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx]
> Sent:        Sunday, October 03, 1999 11:10 PM
> To:        IDM
> Subject:        Re: (idm) Vulgarity or Incoherence?
> 
> On Fri, 1 Oct 1999 23:13:49    Zenon M. Feszczak wrote:
> 
> >I suspect that even those who freely use vulgarity know when and if 
> >that language may offend. Unless one that each of us creates our language
> in a vacuum.
> 
> Sure. I choose to write the way I do, swearing when I feel like it,
> because I think it undercuts a certain tone in writing that really grates
> with me. Swearing, whether deemed offensive or not, always makes something
> a little more conversational, IME. 
> 
> I figure that if I was really bothered by someone's use of language
> sufficiently, I'd let them know. I'd invite people to do the same with me.
> 
> >Difficult for me to recontextualize the words "I'll fucking kill you" 
> >as anything beyond the literal - if ungrammatical - intent.
> 
> Uh, you haven't given an original context, so it's no wonder you're having
> trouble. :-)
> 
> As a side note, it annoys me that you call that ungrammatical. "Fucking"
> is used as a verb, a noun, an adjective, and an infix in all varieties of
> English I have had contact with. If that is what you think is
> ungrammatical then I severely doubt you can come up with any counter
> evidence.
> 
> But I'd like to take this back to the original point and suggest that
> generally swearing, particularly the examples Irene raised, is not often
> used to be aggressive or confrontational. They were smutty rather than
> aggressive things, so I don't follow why you connect those with aggressive
> noises.
> 
> Having said all this, I think I agree with every point Irene made. I don't
> like any of the names or titles she cited, and some of them make me cringe
> in a way that just cries out to me "avoid", rather than either encouraging
> me to laugh or sit down and do a bit of chin-stroking about what is
> acceptable to title art or somesuch.
> 
> Michael
> 
> 
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