[4395] in Depressing_Thoughts
Re: selling someone else's soul :-)
tiuzzol@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (tiuzzol@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Tue Mar 8 01:16:43 1994
> tiuzzol writes:
>
> - It had been requested earlier that this thread should be moved to
> - flaming_thoughts and a couple of people requested that it not because they
> - wanted to discuss it in a non-flammatory manner,
>
> Actually, that's incorrect. People requested that it not because they felt
> that it fit within the group (being on something depressing; this is, after
> all, depressing_thoughts, yes?).
No.... knowing many of the people who post here, and having waded through
flaming_thoughts at one point, I will maintain that they requested
it stay here because they didn't want to discuss in a flamatory manner
and they didn't want the arguments to become as serious and as personal
as they do on flaming_thoughts. They justified this by arguing that it was
indeed still a depressing thought and that the discussion had been
relatively polite, and not heated..
> What is rude or offensive about the word "fuck", in and of itself?
> Why is something rendered "rude" if a certain noun is preceded by a "fucking"?
> It's such an undangerous little thing, "fucking". It's a word.
If we are to understand each other, we must agree on the meanings of words (or
at least think that we each have similar concepts of what a word means). If
you think that "to bake a cake" is the same concept as what I consider "to fix
a car", and if the rest of our concepts about the meaning of words are also
greatly skewed, then there is no use in me or anyone else who's word-concepts
are so different in reading your posts. Because we would not understand what
you intend to say. We would do you the disservice of assuming that you believe
something that you don't.
Much of society agrees that "fuck" and "shit," aside from having the actual
meanings of "to have sex" and "excrement," have strong emotions behind them.
If I say "fucking dog" in a certain tone, I don't just mean that the dog is
having sex with the bitch next door, I am putting the dog down. I am being
rude to it. And I use "fucking" because I *want* to be rude to it. Now, if
you go using the word "fucking" and intend absolutely no rudeness towards the
nouns it modifies, then you are using a different meaning of the word "fucking"
than I understand, and in order to be rude to the dog in your presence,
I have to now find another word that has a rude context to you to imply
that I do not like this dog. If all the world threw aside the accepted
meanings of words the way you wish to encourage us to do, then none of
us would understand each other.
Furthermore, in an environment such as this one, electronic and devoid of
the tones of voice that imply so much in verbal language, we must make
take from the wording and the punctuation your tone of voice. So
even more so in this medium, we must be able to assume that "fucking" implies
anger and rudeness, so that we can understand that the post contains
anger, and that you really aren't just positively delighted with the
department of defense.
