Comments on: Tongue Tied

By: Tongue Tied, Part II @ Ales Rarus

Tongue Tied, Part II @ Ales Rarus — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 10:07:03 +0000

[...] July 1st, 2005 by Funky Dung A couple days ago, I wrote about the A Form of Sound Words post about "synthetic cursing" and the response from Joe Missionary. I promised I'd respond to Messy Christian and Jeff the Baptist. Today I will. [...]

By: Ales Rarus - A Rare Bird, A Strange Duck, One Funky Blog » Unclean Lips

Ales Rarus - A Rare Bird, A Strange Duck, One Funky Blog » Unclean Lips — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 18:08:27 +0000

[...] Tongue Tied Part I [...]

By: John

John — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Also important to keep clear that there is a theological prohibition on taking the Lord's name in vain. There is no religious prohibition on saying cuss words.

One is a matter of sin, the other of ill breeding.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Good post, Eric - I look forward to reading what you have to say about MC's and JtheB's posts! I agree with you about the issue of intent. If I said "piss" to Rand just to get his KJV goat, that would be offensive in that I know it's a distasteful word but am calling it clean.

And John, I would say that while there may not be prohibitions against cuss words (I'm not sure there aren't, though), there are enough commands for us regarding positive speech that I think the prohibition can be implied.

Anytime someone seems to me to be defending swearing, it makes me wonder why…

By: stuff

stuff — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

In the immortal words of Bart Simpson, "yeah, hell damn fart!" And don't forget, "crap, boobs, crap!"

By: Mark La Roi

Mark La Roi — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

It's hard for me to say His name easily in public. To even say His name out loud always causes me to recognize that my mouth is forming His name. It's like when it slips over my tongue, all reality shudders for an instant.

He's an awesome God!

By: gbm3

gbm3 — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Just a comment:

Swearing in other European (and derived) cultures quite often has to do with 'blasphemy - To speak of (God or a sacred entity) in an irreverent, impious manner'.

French and British English are full of them. There it is clear blasphemy (at least to me).

---

By: Steve Nicoloso

Steve Nicoloso — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Read charitably, Messy Christian's defense of so-called "cuss words" seems based on the idea that better to be "authentic" than "inauthentic." This is an absurd argument. We suffer from too much authenticity already… The same could be said that if one feels like murdering, it would be better to murder than be "inauthentic" and resist the temptation. The argument is so poor, it almost convinced me of the opposing view… almost.

I think Jeff the Baptist's argument is weak, perhaps hastily conceived or penned, but more toward the point in that he is able to rightly discriminate between violation of the 2nd commandment (by Catholic counting), viz., blasphemy, and mere obscenity, which is culturally and subjectively defined.

What I'd propose is a four-ary breakdown, a spectrum, of Dangerous Words, recognizing of course that even the strongest word is inherently weaker than the weakest meaning and intention.

1) Objective Violation of the 2nd Commandment–vain use of God's name: YHWH, Jesus, Christ, maybe others, uttered either as a curse or a intentionally false oath. This is, I think, always a grave matter. I'd don't think I'd count the exclamation "god" as a per se' violation here since that is not God's name.

2) Cursing Proper–invoking deity or other holy thing or attribute in vain generally or with a specific eternal intention. Here we would find utterances such as god, goddamn and possibly hell, if the intent is to say dammit to hell. Possibly in this category we might find things like "Holy Moly", but such utterances seem more nonsense than actual profanity. I guess if Moly was a real, unholy thing, then maybe. Dangerous words of categories (1) and (2) are both types of profanity proper. But type (2) fails to be obvectively grave, depending on the circumstances. Damning or wishing hell upon something detestible like, say, sin or heresy or a possibly rotten money-pit of a car or the pain of your thumb once hit by a hammer is not necessarily an evil, unjust, or vain desire. In some cases it is a positive good. Of course we should never wish, not even jokingly, damnation or hell on any person, so certain uses are definitely wrong. Type (2) Dangerous Words are still extremely dangerous and we should definitely not be in the habit of uttering them willy-nilly, just 'cause we feel like it.

3) Obscenity Proper–these are words that refer to conjugal relations and associated body parts, having often or generally a lascivious connotation. Oddly two of these (less dangerous dangerous words) are among the 3 most taboo in the English language… one beginning with F and referring to copulation and the other beginning with C and referring to female sexual anatomy. Others here include "d*ck", various erectile euphemisms, euphemisms of sexual position and exploit, &c., &c.. Sexuality is perhaps the richest soil for the development of slang in the English language (I suppose we should thank either the Victorians or the Puritans for that… perhaps both.) Use of words and themes in this category is dangerous, but sometimes called for. They should be used judiciously and precisely for their shock value and/or their fine ability to convey shades of meaning not readily offerred by other nouns or adjectives. Paul's angry reference to removal of the male member in Galatians falls under this category, I think.

4) Mere Offensive Words–in this category are all the rest and run a gamut from silly (and perfectly innocent) euphemisms for excrement, urine and vomit, to much more potentially wicked terms such as racial slurs. With these words, it depends entirely upon the intent of the communication. Obviously to intend a racial slur is extremely wicked and extremely grave. To refer to a destable thing by some euphemism indicating excrement may be perfectly justified, even laudable in the right circumstances. St. Paul's reference (Philippians) to the fleshly things he valued in his former life as a Pharisee as skubalon ("sh*t") is an example of this kind of usage.

Joe M. muses:

Anytime someone seems to me to be defending swearing, it makes me wonder why…

Simple. Some things are worth defending! … though to be precise, I offer no defense of violation of the 2nd Commandment. There isn't one… except perhaps ignorance.

–My $0.02