Broadcasting the F word

and mine:

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly
native American criminal class except Congress

Phoenix & group,

At the risk of broadening the discussion I will bring up a wider variety of behaviors. As you know, there are laws against public lewdness, nudity, public drunkenness, unreasonable noise and the like. Would you be of a mind to leave these behaviors to the discretion of the individual and rescind these laws or is there something different about them that these behaviors should be controlled and broadcasted expletives should not?

Hey hsweet:

There's a big difference between broadcasting expletives and lewd behaviour. I dislike profanities; for me, they show that whoever uses them gratuitously as having a lack of vocabulary to articulate themselves. But people swear; that's a fact of life. Enforcing the law on public nudity or drunkeness is not censorship; it's enforcing a worthwhile law. I don't think anyone wants to see someone being lewd or walking around naked, but in those situations, we have no choice but to be surrounded by them. There is no off button, so the government has to do something. Getting rid of expletives is completely different; as Phoenix has said, we can choose to turn them off, we can walk away. In cases where it is reasonable that one can make a reasonable choice, a reasonable choice should be allowed for. I don't know; for me, some guy walking around naked is worlds apart from someone swearing.

Drom et reve,

My inclusion of broadcasting expletives with other anti-social behaviors is not to equate them, but instead to relate them. I would suggest that the responsibility for acceptable public behavior, and broadcasting is as public as it gets, should be placed on the individual and that it should not be left to others to make adjustments.

Also, let's not make the jump from the proposal of limiting the public use of specific expletives to censorship of thoughts.

Note - What is the translation of drom et reve?

I agree with you somewhat, hsweet; copious amounts of swearing does nothing but repulse me. Nevertheless, I think that changes are best made from below rather than from above; isn't that how a democracy is supposed to work? If people dislike expletives, complain and petition broadcasters. At least then people have a choice; yes, I am aware of the apathy factor.

What does 'Dròm et rêve' mean? Well, it comes from the mixture of languages that my forefathers made to understand each other without having the stigma of native speaker/learner. It means 'drowning in the dream, (coming from the gerund of dromen, the contraction of en (in) and eit (the) and rêve.)

laws or no laws
Drom et reve & group,

You are quite correct that laws or rules should reflect the common values. If the majority of people are in agreement with Phoenix that the use of expletives on the airwaves should be at the discretion of the individual, then no laws restricting them would be needed. On the other hand, if the majority feels that there should be some restraint, then laws or rules are needed. And, hopefully, our representative lawmakers will reflect this.

My sentiment is that as we are living in an imperfect world, it is not practical to rely on the judgement of each individual to conduct himself in a reasonable way. That laws composed of words can not pinpoint what is reasonable is not justification for not making laws. We simply, in either the legislatures or the courts, have to do the best we can and make refinements when we have not been adequately precise.

I think that the f-word will be considered a bombshell word for years. But, people will begin to accept it, just as they have accepted other profanites into every day speech. Be well aware that we will not see this word on every channel for years and years to come.

Take for example literature and movies. After WW2, many authors wished to portray an accurate picture of the battlefield. And every writer that had actually been on the battlefield knew that the f-word was a comman occurance. Many wrote books that ignored that aspect of an American's soildiers life, but one replaced the word "****" with "fut". Everyone understood what he ment, but he avoided taking the heat for actually printing the word in his book. Since then, people have been finding that the flexability and emotion that the f-word carries with it provides an excellent way for their characters to express themselves.

Again, in movies the story is the same. From the first time the word damn was said in Gone With the Wind, screenwriters began to see profanity as a valid way to portray emotion from their characters.

People use this word every day in conversation. The only reason it is still taboo is because we have made it taboo. People's eyebrows still raise when they read the f-word on the written page. We let it slip by us more frequently in movies. But either way, people think that it is a secret word that should not be used.

The real question here is not whether we need to stop people from using this word, but whether we as a collective need to stop shunning the word from the English language. Really, there is no reason for someone to continue to ignore this word. If you are shunning it, or you believe that your standerds are above it, let me ask you why. The only reason that someone would not accept this word is because of the social stigmatism associated with it. If that was gone, would the f-word really be a "bad word."

This change in our perspective twords the f-word is going to carry over to the radio, the television, and our every day language. It cannot be helped. It is impossible to fight the overwhelming behemoth that is the evoloution of language.

And on that note, one must ask themsleves; why do I really give a ****?

Hello Xifar and welcome to the forum. You have raised a number of issues and I will attempt to address them.

The first is the evolution of speech. What was shocking no longer is. True enough but are we thinking in the limited time span of reacting against Victorianism? The prudish Victorians actually got that way as they were overreacting to the excesses of the eighteenth century. Looking at speech and other behavior from this longer perspective, it could be envisioned that, somewhere down the line, we could start recoiling from the twentieth century just as the Victorians recoiled from the eighteenth. Perhaps that will happen when the adjective "*******" starts to be taught in elementary schools.

In regards to a valid portrayal called for in drama, it would seem that you are right. The refinement of course language would lessen the reality that is attempted to be shown. But, for other forms of communications, that coarseness is uncalled for.

It should also be said that the words themselves have no intrinsic values. They are only representative. And, in this case, we are talking about sounds that are representations of coarseness. And there are occasions for coarseness and there occasions where coarseness should be put aside. If the media is not to make any distinctions, then as people learn from the media, we should expect coarseness to be the common mode of expression. I don't think that we want that.