by Chris Peterson » Thu Jan 31, 2013 3:30 pm
DavidLeodis wrote:geckzilla wrote:Offensive to you, common language to others. It was not used in a way intended to offend you so you should probably ease up a bit. The f-word is an amazingly diverse word! I used to view it with disdain as well but it's grown on me. It's an utterance of such emotion. Excitement, fear, grief, anger, whatever you feel like... all wrapped in one convenient four-letter, monosyllabic package. It's hard to find a more efficient word.
I notice concerning the f-word you "used to view it with disdain" but that it has "grown on" you. Fair enough therefore that you now have no bother with f-words, but I do and so I shall not "ease up" and have no intention of gratuitously using them in speech nor print.
I don't believe she said that she has "no bother" with the word, but rather that she sees it as a word which, in the proper context, is acceptable and appropriate to use.
I agree. To eschew a word simply because it exists, without considering context, seems to me rather immature. And let's not forget that ideas about usage are highly regional. That word is not universally considered particularly bad by English speakers. It is not an expletive at all in many subcultures, and even in British English the word is considered only a mild expletive in most cases. Of course, there are also words that are quite offensive to speakers of British English that most Americans wouldn't think twice about.
Analogous to the concept of seven degrees of separation, I doubt that any site on the Internet is more than a few clicks away from the hardest core pornography, let alone from a site with a word some might find offensive. I think it is sufficient that the APOD editors maintain their own site as scrupulously family-friendly (which they do) without overly concerning themselves with minor issues of language choice on linked sites that otherwise are very appropriate in terms of their related content.
[quote="DavidLeodis"][quote="geckzilla"]Offensive to you, common language to others. It was not used in a way intended to offend you so you should probably ease up a bit. The f-word is an amazingly diverse word! I used to view it with disdain as well but it's grown on me. It's an utterance of such emotion. Excitement, fear, grief, anger, whatever you feel like... all wrapped in one convenient four-letter, monosyllabic package. It's hard to find a more efficient word.[/quote]
I notice concerning the f-word you "used to view it with disdain" but that it has "grown on" you. Fair enough therefore that you now have no bother with f-words, but I do and so I shall not "ease up" and have no intention of gratuitously using them in speech nor print.[/quote]
I don't believe she said that she has "no bother" with the word, but rather that she sees it as a word which, in the proper context, is acceptable and appropriate to use.
I agree. To eschew a word simply because it exists, without considering context, seems to me rather immature. And let's not forget that ideas about usage are highly regional. That word is not universally considered particularly bad by English speakers. It is not an expletive at all in many subcultures, and even in British English the word is considered only a mild expletive in most cases. Of course, there are also words that are quite offensive to speakers of British English that most Americans wouldn't think twice about.
Analogous to the concept of seven degrees of separation, I doubt that any site on the Internet is more than a few clicks away from the hardest core pornography, let alone from a site with a word some might find offensive. I think it is sufficient that the APOD editors maintain their own site as scrupulously family-friendly (which they do) without overly concerning themselves with minor issues of language choice on linked sites that otherwise are very appropriate in terms of their related content.