Profanity

[Kia ora]

Somtimes I check out Christian reviews of movies, although I am not a Christian. Most of them come from a Protestant perspective. They list the perceived harmful sides of the movie, like sex scenes and violence. But also profanity. This always leaves me scratching my head. I can understand why blasphemous curse words would be considered bad. But profanity covers a wide range of topics, from bodily excretion to parts of our body.

What's so bad about them? Of course this isn't limited to Christian movie reviewers, it's something that society in general seems to share. I'm a linguistics student. I love languages. I know that it's natural, or very common, for societies to segregate some words as forbidden. But there's no real, [i]objective[/i] reason why sh*t is more offensive than faeces. I really think that people in general need to chill out. If I like to use the f-word more than other people, it doesn't make me a bad person.

[penguin31]

For me, the problem with profanity isn't even necessarily the actual words themselves (they're just an assemblage of consonants and vowels), but the intent and meaning by you're using. The more angry, or more vulgar your intent, the worse the language is. Language bad enough and you actually can even start to hurt another emotionally.

I have no problem with words. I have a problem with the meaning of the language.

[Kia ora]

There's a time and a place for angry thoughts and words, and I think there's even a time for hurting people emotionally. Obviously that's why the words were created in the first place, because people needed to shock, offend, create strong emotions etc.

[Papist]

[quote name='Kia ora' timestamp='1324374535' post='2354339']
There's a time and a place for angry thoughts and words, and I think there's even a time for hurting people emotionally. Obviously that's why the words were created in the first place, because people needed to shock, offend, create strong emotions etc.
[/quote]

I can't think of any time or place for angry thoughts or words to be intentional. I believe it is never good to intentionally hurt someone, be it physical or emotional, either with sticks and stones or with words. Profane words have no place in a conversion, and not even in an argument. We should be able articulate our point without using vulgar and hurtful words.

[Ice_nine]

I think we should differentiate between profanity and vulgarity. As a linguistics student you probably know that a lot of words that have been derogated to something "bad" have to do with commoners (vulgar, knave, villian to name a few). To me this indicates a shift in language that was created by classism (common, lower classes = bad). That's why it kind of irritates me when people say "swearing makes you sound stupid/uneducated." It's just how some people talk you know? Throwing around 25 cent words don't make you instantly superior.

Profanity to me seems to connotate actual cursing, blasphemy against God and such. That should be forbidden, but I could blaspheme God without using any of the "naughty" words.

And words change, When you say the f-word you aren't always (probably most of the time aren't) using the word to indicate a crude form of sexual intercourse.

So I'm pretty much with you.