Considering it seems to be the fashionable thing here at Chat Avenue to site ban, insta ban, people who say certain words, it got me to thinking of whether or not if people here at this site (the ********) actually believe there is words so bad that they cannot be said, even in a quote or used as an illustrative point. Last night I was discussing the continent of Australia and its relationship to Britain, and I said that no other nation has "r word", pillaged, slaughtered more nations than Great Britain has and I was banned. To me, I wasnt saying the "r word" in the sexual sense or even a harassing sense, but as an illustrative point that the lands and people were "r worded" of their dignity, fossil fuels, minerals, etc. To me its as simple as this.... it is not the words, but it is how you say the words.... I dont know how many times I see in chat that the girls call eachother bitches and laugh it off, yet someone may find it offensive; but they are close and are saying it in a sisterly type of way. Now had someone said "You are a bitch" in an aggressive type of way, sarcastic type of way, then it becomes offensive. Am just curious, as to what other peoples thoughts are.
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Is There Such a Thing as a Bad Word?
- Thread starter RUFUS
- Start date
Considering it seems to be the fashionable thing here at Chat Avenue to site ban, insta ban, people who say certain words, it got me to thinking of whether or not if people here at this site (the ********) actually believe there is words so bad that they cannot be said, even in a quote or used as an illustrative point. Last night I was discussing the continent of Australia and its relationship to Britain, and I said that no other nation has "r word", pillaged, slaughtered more nations than Great Britain has and I was banned. To me, I wasnt saying the "r word" in the sexual sense or even a harassing sense, but as an illustrative point that the lands and people were "r worded" of their dignity, fossil fuels, minerals, etc. To me its as simple as this.... it is not the words, but it is how you say the words.... I dont know how many times I see in chat that the girls call eachother bitches and laugh it off, yet someone may find it offensive; but they are close and are saying it in a sisterly type of way. Now had someone said "You are a bitch" in an aggressive type of way, sarcastic type of way, then it becomes offensive. Am just curious, as to what other peoples thoughts are.
they probably banned you for being wrong, since mongolia tops britain. people probably ban it because people who throw it around are annoying more than anything.
they probably banned you for being wrong, since mongolia tops britain. people probably ban it because people who throw it around are annoying more than anything.
If you are referring to the Emperor Genghis Kahn, I don't think even him came close to the last 1,000 years of history of British control over its colonies. However, that wasnt the point of the issue; the issue is, is there such a thing as a bad word (since that was the reason given for a room ban).
Scarecrow666
Banned
A word is just a word. What does it do? It can't do physical damage like sticks and stones can.... well stones mostly **** sticks.
Not everyone is capable of blocking out negative/offensive comments; while words cannot literally do physical damage, it can have a great deal of long-lasting emotional effects on someoneA word is just a word. What does it do? It can't do physical damage like sticks and stones can.... well stones mostly **** sticks.
I mean I get what you are saying but if they get mad isn't that their own fault allowing it to effected by it? I mean you have an ignore button for a reason, right?
You would think so, but evidentially this place turned into Mr. Roger's Neighborhood :lmao:
joshuamartin
New Member
i think there are words that are bad especially ones like the c word and the f word when they call people them i know there just words of the alphabet but when put together they are hurtful words
tinkerbell21
New Member
I don't believe that any words can be classified as either 'good' or 'bad', it mainly how you used the word in different phrases.
I agree with you. What classifies a word as good or bad? for example, if you do a little research, you can find that fuck actually had a very interesting background, but b/c i'm sure most of you don't want to look it up lol, I've found it:
Word Origin & History
****
a difficult word to trace, in part because it was taboo to theeditors of the original OED when the "F" volume was compiled,1893-97. Written form only attested from early 16c. OED 2ndedition cites 1503, in the form fukkit; earliest appearance ofcurrent spelling is 1535 -- "Bischops ... may **** thair
fill and be vnmaryit" [Sir David Lyndesay, "Ane Satyre of theThrie Estaits"], but presumably it is a much more ancient wordthan that, simply one that wasn't likely to be written in the kindof texts that have survived from O.E. and M.E. Buck cites propername John le ****er from 1278. The word apparently is hinted atin a scurrilous 15c. poem, titled "Flen flyys," written in ******* L.and M.E. The relevant line reads:
Non sunt in celi
quia fuccant uuiuys of heli
"They [the monks] are not in heaven because they **** thewives of Ely." Fuccant is pseudo-Latin, and in the original it iswritten in cipher. The earliest examples of the word otherwise arefrom Scottish, which suggests a Scandinavian origin, perhapsfrom a word akin to Norw. dial. fukka "copulate," or Swedish dial.focka "copulate, strike, push," and fock "penis." Another theorytraces it to M.E. fkye, fike "move restlessly, fidget," which alsomeant "dally, flirt," and probably is from a general North Sea Gmc.word, cf. M.Du. fokken, Ger. ficken "****," earlier "make quickmovements to and fro, flick," still earlier "itch, scratch;" thevulgar sense attested from 16c. This would parallel in sense theusual M.E. slang term for "have ***ual intercourse," swive, fromO.E. swifan "to move lightly over, sweep" (see swivel).Chronology and phonology rule out Shipley's attempt to derive itfrom M.E. firk "to press hard, beat." As a noun, it dates from1680. French foutre and Italian fottere look like the English wordbut are unrelated, derived rather from L. futuere, which isperhaps from PIE base *bhau(t)- "knock, strike off," extended viaa figurative use "from the ***ual application of violent action"[Shipley; cf. the ***ual slang use of bang, etc.]. Popular andInternet derivations from acronyms (and the "pluck yew" fable)are merely ingenious trifling. The O.E. word was h?man, fromham "dwelling, home," with a sense of "take home, co-habit."**** was outlawed in print in England (by the ObscenePublications Act, 1857) and the U.S. (by the Comstock Act,1873). The word may have been shunned in print, but itcontinued in conversation, especially among soldiers during WWI.quia fuccant uuiuys of heli
"It became so common that an effective way for the soldierto express this emotion was to omit this word. Thus if asergeant said, 'Get your ----ing rifles!' it was understood asa matter of routine. But if he said 'Get your rifles!' there wasan immediate implication of urgency and danger." [JohnBrophy, "Songs and Slang of the British Soldier: 1914-1918,"pub. 1930]
The legal barriers broke down in the 20th century, with the"Ulysses" decision (U.S., 1933) and "Lady Chatterley's Lover"(U.S., 1959; U.K., 1960). Johnson excluded the word, and ****wasn't in a single English language dictionary from 1795 to 1965."The Penguin Dictionary" broke the taboo in the latter year.Houghton Mifflin followed, in 1969, with "The American HeritageDictionary," but it also published a "Clean Green" edition withoutthe word, to assure itself access to the lucrative public highschool market. The abbreviation F (or eff) probably began aseuphemistic, but by 1943 it was being used as a cuss word, too.In 1948, the publishers of "The Naked and the Dead" persuadedNorman Mailer to use the euphemism fug instead. When Mailerlater was introduced to Dorothy Parker, she greeted him with,"So you're the man who can't spell '****' " [The quip sometimes isattributed to Tallulah Bankhead]. Hemingway used muck in "Forwhom the Bell Tolls" (1940). The major breakthrough inpublication was James Jones' "From Here to Eternity" (1950), with50 ****s (down from 258 in the original manuscript). Egyptianlegal agreements from the 23rd Dynasty (749-21 B.C.E.)frequently include the phrase, "If you do not obey this decree,may a donkey copulate with you!" [Reinhold Aman, "Maledicta,"Summer 1977]. ****-all "nothing" first recorded 1960. Verbalphrase **** up "to ruin, spoil, destroy" first attested c.1916. Awidespread group of Slavic words (cf. Pol. pierdolić) can meanboth "fornicate" and "make a mistake." **** off attested from1929; as a command to depart, by 1944. Flying **** originallymeant "have *** on horseback" and is first attested c.1800 inbroadside ballad "New Feats of Horsemanship." For the unkillableurban legend that this word is an acronym of some sort (a fictiontraceable on the Internet to 1995 but probably predating that)see here, and also here. Related: ****ed; ****ing. Agent noun****er attested from 1590s in literal sense; by 1893 as a term ofabuse (or admiration).reference: dictionary.com
Depends on the context imo. If it's meant to demean or degrade someone then it's clearly bad.I dont know how many times I see in chat that the girls call eachother bitches and laugh it off, yet someone may find it offensive; but they are close and are saying it in a sisterly type of way. Now had someone said "You are a bitch" in an aggressive type of way, sarcastic type of way, then it becomes offensive. Am just curious, as to what other peoples thoughts are.
If you're talking about swearing, well that's a silly notion left over from the days when people used "high speech" and "low speech." Back then the cultural gap between those with power (royalty) and those without (serfs) was so vast that the separate classes began to develop separate languages.
When you stop and think about it, a word is simply a sound you make with your mouth to communicate an idea. If "crap" is okay then there's no reason why the "s" version shouldn't be okay too since both communicate the exact same idea.
So when certain people of the nobility declared certain words "dirty" or "foul," they were mainly talking about the peasants who invented those words.
Sadly, we carry on this idiotic tradition to this day by demonizing certain words and regarding those who use them with contempt.
tl;dr bait.
tl;dr bait.
^ this. it's the same double-standard you see all the time.
i'm not here to bash c/a's censorship, it doesn't really bother me. but as an example... two words relating to male genitalia... the 'd' one is censored on chat, the 'c' one is not. in addition, it's okay to call a woman a bitch on chat but not the harsher 'c-word' equivalent. you may call someone gay as an insult, but not specifically its 'f-word' equivalent.
based on that you could argue in favor of censorship based on INTENT rather than the actual wording... but then, any sort of insult at all could be grounds for a ban. i don't think anyone's going to vote for that plan (because seriously, some people just need to be told they're pricks 😉)
on a related note, bitch used to be censored on the radio. and when i was a young girl, i was berated for using the word 'crap'. times are changing (or, some would argue, our culture is just more desensitized), and i don't think any of these words will be off-limits for too much longer. it's not necessarily a bad thing imo... just something that's bound to happen for our language to evolve.
tl;dr bait.
If "crap" is okay then there's no reason why the "s" version shouldn't be okay too since both communicate the exact same idea.
^ this. it's the same double-standard you see all the time.
i'm not here to bash c/a's censorship, it doesn't really bother me. but as an example... two words relating to male genitalia... the 'd' one is censored on chat, the 'c' one is not. in addition, it's okay to call a woman a bitch on chat but not the harsher 'c-word' equivalent. you may call someone gay as an insult, but not specifically its 'f-word' equivalent.
based on that you could argue in favor of censorship based on INTENT rather than the actual wording... but then, any sort of insult at all could be grounds for a ban. i don't think anyone's going to vote for that plan (because seriously, some people just need to be told they're pricks 😉)
on a related note, bitch used to be censored on the radio. and when i was a young girl, i was berated for using the word 'crap'. times are changing (or, some would argue, our culture is just more desensitized), and i don't think any of these words will be off-limits for too much longer. it's not necessarily a bad thing imo... just something that's bound to happen for our language to evolve.
I think the intention behind the words are the real issue. But some of the words I've seen mentioned here lead me to believe that the censorship might be a little too rigid...I tend to speak my mind - American and all 🙂 - and I'm apt not to last too long here.... But I will try my best to avoid offending if I can. It's never really my intent. People who get off on that have always seemed odd to me. Coming to a chat forum to NOT talk is just strange.
Economister
New Member
Limiting ones expressive capacity to just a handful of four letter words, or the like, is more indicative of a weak and thoughtless vocabulary than a "nanny-state-forum."
DemonHunter
New Member
I don't believe so. I simply believe it has to do with the context in which the word's used and I believe that every emotional word i.e. hate, love, and curse words have power behind them unless you continuously use them. If you call everyone an a-hole then your closer friends would get used to it and be like whatever and even when they'd get into an argument with that guy and he says that, they don't take the word half as seriously compared to as if the guy rarely said it. You know what I mean? I mean if the guy said it to some stranger then it'd be a different story. I suppose when you get to the nitty gritty about it, society decides the "good" and "bad" words that can be used out in public, however when it comes to more private surroundings with friends who have become accustomed to whatever colorful vocabulary you have you can say basically whatever you want. I mean I don't know bout you but when I hear a guy walk past me with a few of his friends and he's cussing up a storm I instinctively think something like, "***hole", I don't think any less of that person, just what I instinctively think due to what society has "programmed" into me. However my friends can say whatever at my place, and I wouldn't mind.
Charles Foster Kane
Banned
I oppose censorship, but still, the FCC's seven words were originally chosen for the social stigma they caused.