Who gives a @#$% about profanity?

CNN/AP: Who gives a @#$% about profanity?
Poll says 75% of women and 60% of men don't like swearwords
Tuesday, March 28, 2006

....Are we living in an Age of Profanity?

Nearly three-quarters of Americans questioned last week -- 74 percent -- said they encounter profanity in public frequently or occasionally, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll. Two-thirds said they think people swear more than they did 20 years ago. And as for, well, the gold standard of foul words, a healthy 64 percent said they use the F-word -- ranging from several times a day (8 percent) to a few times a year (15 percent).

Just ask Joe Cormack. Like any bartender, Cormack, of Fort Dodge, Iowa, hears a lot of talk. He's not really offended by bad language -- heck, he uses it himself every day. But sometimes, a customer will unleash the F-word so many times, Cormack just has to jump in.

"Do you have any idea how many times you've just said that?" he reports saying from time to time. "I mean, if I take that out of your vocabulary, you've got nothin'!"...

***

At the community college where Cormack studies journalism, students will occasionally inject foul language into classroom discussions.

Irene Kramer, a grandmother in Scranton, Pennsylvania, gets her ears singed when passing by the high school near her home....

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/03/28/profanity.ap/index.html

Peace.

"And it's not just at the bar. Or on TV. (Or on the Senate floor, for that matter, where Vice President Dick Cheney used the F-word in a heated argument two years ago.)"

"Fuck Saddam. We're gonna take him out."

:sarcasm:

You've got it wrong. You have to blame Clinton.

I can weave a tapestry of profanity that will hang over the neighborhood like a low dark storm cloud. Mostly when plumbing is involved...

But seriously, I make an effort when talking to others to make my points without...unless there is humor involved. All humor seems to involve some kind of profanity... don't ask me why.

MZr7

that is rife with either profanity or violence. His options have been limited.
The good news is he's a real lib!

Though I will use them generally only in socially acceptable settings, I do probably say fuck this or fuck that or fucking goddamn it or fucking something or other a good 15-20 times a day (though maybe I'll try and count them tomorrow, could be more).

It's habit forming don't 'cha know? Put a quarter in a jar every time you use the word, written and oral, and see how much you'd end up with. I bet it would be as much as I'd save if I quit smoking, ( but I've always got a good "excuse" not to !:shrug: LOL

;)
seriously, i don't get the big deal. He said... A WORD! Good gosh almighty! Yeah, theres a time and place for it... business meeting? no. Class discussion? Iffy. But a bar? who cares?

Read some of my posts and you will surely see.

I think the main thing is recognizing that there are certain situations where it is acceptable and other situations where it is totally inappropriate and disrespectful.

:patriot:

to the situation. Cussin' and shootin' -- that's our VP.

Is insanity a strong enough word?

"There's Adam Clymer -- major league asshole -- from the New York Times." - George W. Bush, Naperville, Ill., September 04, 2000

FINK: When you're talking about politics, what do you and (your father) talk about?
BUSH: Pussy.
-- Interview with David Fink of the Hartford Courant at the Republican Convention, 1988

In 1987 at a Dallas restaurant, Bush approached a table occupied by Al Hunt, of The Wall Street Journal, Judy Woodruff, of CNN, and their four-year-old son, and burst out with, "You no good fucking sonofabitch, I will never forget what you wrote!" Hunt had omitted the name of Bush's father from a list of possible presidential candidates he had sent in to Washingtonian magazine—because Vice President Bush had yet to declare his candidacy.
-- The Atlantic Monthly, September 6, 2001

"God speaks through me." - George W. Bush, Lancaster, PA, July 9, 2004

:eyes: Just watch.

often myself, but I also don't want my grandchildren, ages 6 & 8, to have to hear it all the time.

There are some situations where no other words really convey your message! HOWEVER, if we hear this kind of junk too much, we tend to use it ourselves a bit too often.

Believe me, I know! Profanity USED to be used for the shock factor, but when it becomes too common place, it shows the person talking just can't think of anything more intelligent to say.

I think there is a thin line between use and overuse and abuse, but sometimes a well-positioned f-bomb can give just the right zing to a sentence.

For example:

1) President Bush is a dickwad.

Versus:

2) President Bush is a fucking dickwad.

You decide... ;)




(But in all seriousness, I really meant it--every once in awhile, there is a place in conversation and in writing for "foul" language.)

... My parents didn't teach me, the nuns didn't either, nor the Jesuits. It was the Marine Corps. One DI was from Texas, and he wove tapestries... no... he wove Christo-sized art works of profanity.

"You people are as noisy as two skeletons fucking on a tin roof using a beer can as a condom!"

"Dippy motherfucking turd!" was a term of endearment.

Things kinda moved up - or down - from that time.

I've found profanity and scatology to be vocabulary-expanders.

About those people offended.... like we used to say "Hey... fuck 'em if they can't take a joke!"

but damn, that's a lot of cussing.

Here's a link but cover your ears when you read it.
http://www.metrolyrics.com/lyrics/810/South_Park/Uncle_Fucka

I swear quite a bit, but never in the classroom, and I don't let the kids get away with it, either. I tell them to think of it as a vocabulary exercise. There are half a million words in the English language, and they'll never get any more eloquent if they use the same five or six all the time!

That being said, I think some of the concern and/or outrage over profanity is appallingly hypocritical, and not just because Cheney and Bush pretend to be saintly while simultaneously dropping f-bombs here and there. Whenever I hear politicians waxing sanctimonious about profanity, vulgarity, and such, it reminds me of the following exchange from the movie Fat Man and Little Boy, which told of the race to build the first atomic bomb.

General Leslie Graves (Paul Newman) comes to the Oppenheimer home in search of his pet physicist. Oppenheimer (Dwight Schultz) is mourning the death (by suicide) of his mistress. Oppenheimer's wife (Bonnie Bedelia) greets the general at the door and tells him that her husband is sitting in the back yard with a blanket over his lap. Then she comments:

Kitty Oppenheimer: Nursing a guilty dick, no doubt.

Gen. Graves: It is not necessary to be vulgar.

Kitty Oppenheimer: Nothing I say could approach the vulgarity of what you're building in your back yard.

This scene has always illustrated to me the hypocrisy of conservatives. How can a few words (or Janet Jackson's nipple) be more vulgar than killing thousands of innocent people? These people get all worked up over a few cuss words, but they have no problem making decisions that will result in widespread death and destruction.

Fuck 'em, I say. And the horse they rode in on!