Whats wrong with cursing word?

[Merek]

cuss words are just a way of explaining feelings, (disatisfied obviously)

i think its not something to overanalyz, and just something that has been and mabey always will be a part of life. You might as well over analyze the word banana and horse......(random words i chose)....

[goku]

how is it that a two year-old can hear a cus word one time and repeat it perficly over and over?

it's kinda like this: bad comes easy, good doesn't

 

and over and over in front of everyone, and they know exacticly how to use it!

[infamous]

cuss words are just a way of explaining feelings,

The English language is quite sufficient at explaining any idea without submitting oneself to abstract expletives. If you think about it honestly, someone that constantly uses a deficient vocabulary will often resort to this lower form of vocalization.

[Merek]

yes becuase that shows though that they delope a habit of useing it...., it still doesnt counter that they use it to explain themselves (or they can merley like to explain themselves that way). lol it is easier sometimes.

[C1ay]

Here's a humorous article on the subject. Warning, not kid safe....

[Boerseun]

Coming back to the "f-word", it is universally accepted to be rude, and the rapist-connotation as per my previous post might very well be true.

 

Amongst chimps, dominance is largely established by sexual relations. A dominant male will mount any member of the troop, but in the majority of the cases it seems to be simulated only. It seems to be a case of "I'm the boss around here, and I will have my way with you regardless of you". The rest, being submissive, accepts it as the way it is, and thus their hierarchy is strengthened. Young upstart males will sometimes try their luck, and whether successfull or not, it show the rest of the troop who the next in line in the hierarchy is.

 

Although a distasteful topic, rape is certainly a very good survival mechanism for males, that is. The more you copulate, regardless of the female's will, and the wider you sow the wild oats, the better your chance of spreading your genes. So, it might be the reason men go for pornography, strip clubs, brothels and such - men are inherently more sexually inclined than women. It's a simple fact - men can have thousands of children in their lifetime, and the instinct for intercourse in order to spread the genes will be stronger than in women, who can only have a paltry few (relatively speaking) children in their lifetimes.

 

But telling somebody "f___ you", is, in my mind, a throwback to our primitive primate past, where the "I" is implied in front of the offensive word. It's an attempt to establish a dominance hierarchy in the simplest, basest form we know, albeit unsubconsciously. The reason we'll say "(I) f___ you" instead of "(I) copulate with you" is that the word "copulate" only describes the act, whilst the "f-word" inplies sex without consent, i.e. rape, and the fact that the victim of your verbal assault must submit in order to escape this fate. As in the case of the simulated sex acts amongst chimps.

 

It is interesting to note that using this form of insult and verbal assault is more popular amongst the less educated. And the popular media aside, if you take two inner-city gangstas involved in a screaming match, one saying "f___you", the other saying "No, f___ you", with the answer being "NO, F___ YOU!" ad infinitum, the one who gives up first submits to the authority of the other, and a new hierarchy is born. The more educated, however, gets involved in politics, and stands for election. (But in the final analysis, aren't politicians just a bunch of "f___ers", in any case?)

 

Compare my example of the two inner-city drug-pushing gangstas with the chimps earlier in this post. I think establishing a hierarchy in such a way comes very naturally to humans, and we have just found a convenient way of doing it with a specific (on the face of it, innocent) word without landing in jail. If not for the "f-word", we might see jails overrun with people trying to establish a submission-hierarchy and getting arrested for rape or attempted rape.

 

Interesting, though.

 

What is also interesting, is that most other swearwords have either a sexual connotation, or a relation to some bodily function. There's plenty - and I won't call them by name, the "a-word", the "b-word", the "c-word", that'll take up the whole alphabet. And that being the case, I wonder if most swearwords don't just plug into the same concept as the "f-word" above. So, next time somebody calls you a "m_______g c___ a________ p______ f______ b_______", you can just counter him by saying "Don't act like a monkey, now!"

[Nix]

in primary school, i thought my friends mother was amazingly liberal when she allowed him to swear if it justifiably added to the meaning and value of what he was saying. and this from a highly repected judge. and i agree.my gripe with swear words, mainly f, is that despite being impressively versatile, theyre overused. in their absence would we have greater vocabulary and be more articulate? but then there is an essential meaning in f that nothing else could replace... ;)

 

that said, why is it that language courses, along the lines of ones you pay thrpough the nose for or enrol in uni, never teach you the taboo? how am i meant to respond accordingly if i dont know im being sworn at (even though the response may be the same as that offered). why when im paying money do i have to learn the naughties from czech friends, who end up being highly amused at what i want to learn??!! this is even more apparent to me as im a native neglish speaker with as yet no other languages staying in prague. and everyone here is walking around yelling "FAKT" which i now know is along the lines of "really?". how was i to know!!!!! had i known the real czexh version of f i mightve been a little more savvy... ;)

[GAHD]

I'd say that Fing word is just another sign that newspeak really is coming to be: one word that can be used in any context.

[HydrogenBond]

Maybe swearing is a right of passage that is a part of growing up. These are words of power that can influence and reach a wider audience more than the $20. words. But eventually, one needs to put down the toys of youthful vigour, get married and keep your mouth shut, unless the wife wants you to talk dirty. Ha Ha

[Merek]

I Hold To My Opinion! ;) ;) ;)

[Boerseun]

I'd say that Fing word is just another sign that newspeak really is coming to be: one word that can be used in any context.

Interesting concept.

 

Imagine: Pretty soon you won't understand what anybody's saying, unless you know in what context it's being said! Our vocabulary might consist of only ten words, with a million meanings!

[FetusHead]

"Curse words" only have power because we allow them to. They change over time and some words deemed inappropriate in the past have made it into daily language. I bet ****, ****, ***, and republican will all cease to be bad words some day and you'll be hearing them regularly on television.

 

Don't like cussing? **** off, ****! :)

[infamous]

Interesting concept.

 

Imagine: Pretty soon you won't understand what anybody's saying, unless you know in what context it's being said! Our vocabulary might consist of only ten words, with a million meanings!

Truly Boerseun; And I contend that the more ambiguous the language becomes, the less effective are the results of it's use. Evolution of the language will prosper only if care is taken to resist the trend allowing it to sink into the gutter. Allowed to continue, the use of it will change our speech into nothing more or less than the barking of a dog!! Making the excuse that it enhances or makes the language easier to use is absurd, elevating the position of anything takes maintenance. Maybe those that propose using this language would like to suspend teaching English in the classroom? Just allow speech to take care of itself they might say? In two or three generations our offspring would probably have the vocabulary of a three month old. Get serious.

[FetusHead]

That's rediculous. What makes the use of certain consonant and vowel sounds together offensive? It can't be the meaning: **** and poop are the same thing, and yet it is the former that is considered a "curse" word. The same can be said of sex and the f-word (which is obviously automatically edited here for some strange reason).

 

If you think explitives are "destroying" our language and reducing it to some level akin to trash in a gutter, then you are blind to the history of language and its evolution - language is a living dynamic thing, not some static monolith to be tended to by those that believe they have a higher set of standards.

 

If I want to express my discontent with your ideology in an extreme manner, it makes more sense for me to say "**** your dogma. It's ****" than for me to say "Oh my goodness! How trite!". One expresses the extent to which I don't agree and the other one makes me sound like the queen of England sitting on a thumb tack.

 

If you need to continually use baby talk, go ahead. But don't tell me I'm less intelligent because I use the full range of language as it exists today. That's something a ****tard would do.

 

Truly Boerseun; And I contend that the more ambiguous the language becomes, the less effective are the results of it's use. Evolution of the language will prosper only if care is taken to resist the trend allowing it to sink into the gutter. Allowed to continue, the use of it will change our speech into nothing more or less than the barking of a dog!! Making the excuse that it enhances or makes the language easier to use is absurd, elevating the position of anything takes maintenance. Maybe those that propose using this language would like to suspend teaching English in the classroom? Just allow speech to take care of itself they might say? In two or three generations our offspring would probably have the vocabulary of a three month old. Get serious.

[Kriminal99]

The English language is quite sufficient at explaining any idea without submitting oneself to abstract expletives. If you think about it honestly, someone that constantly uses a deficient vocabulary will often resort to this lower form of vocalization.

 

I disagree. I don't even think the goal is to communicate what happened to you when using a curse word. Saying "I got Screwed" or the f word equivalent has a much different effect than saying "Something unpleasant happened to me" or "Things didn't go my way" or explaining exactly what happened to me. The goal seems to be to cause the person to make a realization connecting the bad thing that happened to them to being raped, and therefore causing them to smile (which seems to be what people always do when making such a connection, and seems to be what humour is based on etc) Maybe there are less offensive connections to be used in this situation, such as saying "I got robbed" when someone cut you a really bad deal or somethign like that.

 

Most people don't have goals that motivate them like concisely and clearly explaining an idea. (And in the end the only objective motivation is to have no motivation at all) They have goals like causing people to laugh and/or sympathize with them and something that happened to them etc. Even if they did I think the English language would be a primitive tool for this purpose. People want to communicate what they heard saw felt etc in any situation they have been in. But each word invokes slightly different images etc for each person. Perhaps having a larger vocabulary allows you to single out and name specific images etc better to a limited degree, but in the end you just have to accept that there are an infinite number of experiences someone might want to communicate and it comes down to how you use the ever limited vocabulary that you have rather than how many words you know.

 

@ Boerseun: I thought "F you" meant "Go F yourself" as in go establish your dominance over yourself by aggressively masturbating while pretending to be a tough guy or whatever. As opposed to " (I) F you" like "Your goan be mah b#$ch" which is a sentiment not unheard of, but that seems to be limited to men locked in jail too long..?

 

Truly Boerseun; And I contend that the more ambiguous the language becomes, the less effective are the results of it's use. Evolution of the language will prosper only if care is taken to resist the trend allowing it to sink into the gutter. Allowed to continue, the use of it will change our speech into nothing more or less than the barking of a dog!! Making the excuse that it enhances or makes the language easier to use is absurd, elevating the position of anything takes maintenance. Maybe those that propose using this language would like to suspend teaching English in the classroom? Just allow speech to take care of itself they might say? In two or three generations our offspring would probably have the vocabulary of a three month old. Get serious.

 

Hasn't human history progressed through really long periods were language was not taught? And all that happened was that the languages changed such that two seperated cultures that started with the same language couldnt understand each other any more because their languaged changed as words developed slightly different connotations depending on how they were used to form the connections mentioned in my above reply? Perhaps not a desireable outcome either, but far from language being reduced to dog barks.

 

I think a very similar outcome is likely to occur if your viewpoint is followed to the extreme. In fact I think it has already occured. If every seperate idea is given a new word, then what will happen is that people who deal more often with certain ideas will have basically their own language and be unable to communicate with others regarding their ideas. Then if anyone wants information from those people, since they can't understand their language and therefore their reasoning, they have no choice but to either accept what those people say on authority or not. Therefore they have beliefs that may be dependent on the idiosyncracies or biases of the group who came up with them. As well as a need for much more specialization than is really required by the limitation of the human mind.

 

I say the solution is this. Look at each idea, and if it is something that the vast majority of the population has experience and or knowledge of, then it can have its own word. If it is something that only few people have experience of, then it should be explained in terms of words that most people do have experience of. If you want groups to be able to communicate with each other, then make sure you include both in your determination.

[infamous]

.

 

But don't tell me I'm less intelligent because I use the full range of language as it exists today.

Never said you were less intelligent, your the one that has so aptly brought up that possibility.

That's something a #&(%tard would do.

And if your directing that comment at me, which I'm sure you are, you need to read our FAQ page. Your not permitted to post insults by calling members names. Leaving out a couple letters to hide your intentions will not protect you from being reprimanded.

[HydrogenBond]

There is nothing wrong with using curse words. It can be fun with friends. But it is a limited language set for conveying meaning. Try to discuss relativity using nothing but four letter words or four letter words every other word. The latter uses too much language. In this culture we allow every group its own right to exist and speak their own language, except people who swear. People who swear have to organize. Once they become a legimate group they can be offended by other languages and force others to their own PC.