The recent 2nd US Court of Appeals decision regarding the FCC’s policy is interesting to me. Well, it’s really the FCC’s policy that I find so interesting. If I understand this correctly, the word “shit” is considered indecent because it refers to “excrement.” If it’s the underlying meaning that is the basis of the prohibition, then why aren’t all the synonyms for excrement included?
The Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines excrement as “waste matter discharged from the body, esp. feces.” Why is one version of the word to describe feces obscene when the word “feces” or even the slang word “crap” is not? Is it the meaning or the word?
If it’s the former, then we are trying, very unsuccessfully, to excise a concept from our vocabulary. If it’s the latter, what is wrong with the word “shit?” Why did it get such a bad reputation? Is the French version, “merde”, OK?
I just don’t get it. I’ve never gotten it. To me, the word becomes “bad” because we think it’s bad and because we think it’s bad it becomes taboo. I must confess I don’t know the history of the word and it may have some undesirable usage, like the N-word, that makes this synonym unique relative to, say, “crap”. (“Crap” by the way, I believe is short for “Crapper” which, as I was told, was the name of the gentleman who invented the modern toilet.)
As an interesting side note, if one goes to http://Dictionary.Reference.com and performs a thesaurus lookup on the word “excrement”, the word “shit” is not listed.
I also have the same confusion over the word “fuck”. In a sense, I have a slightly different understanding about this one because it refers to an act from which we like to insulate our children until they are older. I have my questions about that motivation but we use so many euphemisms in our modern vocabulary, that, just like “shit”, I don’t understand why this particular word gets singled out.
Personally, I think we have a fundamental problem -- now there’s a double entendre -- in that we take form over substance. Maybe we think by establishing some edicts against this or that, we are making our society better in some way. I would argue that we are just avoiding addressing the real issues of being human.
I grew up trying not to use certain words because they were bad. However, precisely because they were so bad, they carried extra impact -- they became part of that special arsenal I could tap into when I really wanted to express an intense emotion. They became Super Words. I imagine that was not the prohibitors’ intentions but I do believe that was the effect.
I fully expect those words to be part of my daughter’s vocabulary. It’s just a common form of expression and personally, to me, they are just other words for a particular meaning that happen to have a short, focused sound that is sometimes desirable for expressing exasperation or other emotions. What I do expect, is my daughter to have the sophistication and contextual awareness to know that some words and concepts are best not used in certain settings. To me, this is just good manners, not law or public policy.
I certainly don’t want our society to fall to some base level of crassness but I also think we need to apply perspective and quit putting these words on a pedestal in a 3-lock box. I wish I could see the N-word de-fanged but that word carries with it terrible social baggage and I respect its infamous history by not using it.
With the F-word and the S-word and probably a few other words, I just don’t see the same impact as the N-word and we don’t think we have same prohibitions against using the N-word. Words are just words and what is important is the concepts they convey, not the words themselves.
Substance over form, please.
The Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines excrement as “waste matter discharged from the body, esp. feces.” Why is one version of the word to describe feces obscene when the word “feces” or even the slang word “crap” is not? Is it the meaning or the word?
If it’s the former, then we are trying, very unsuccessfully, to excise a concept from our vocabulary. If it’s the latter, what is wrong with the word “shit?” Why did it get such a bad reputation? Is the French version, “merde”, OK?
I just don’t get it. I’ve never gotten it. To me, the word becomes “bad” because we think it’s bad and because we think it’s bad it becomes taboo. I must confess I don’t know the history of the word and it may have some undesirable usage, like the N-word, that makes this synonym unique relative to, say, “crap”. (“Crap” by the way, I believe is short for “Crapper” which, as I was told, was the name of the gentleman who invented the modern toilet.)
As an interesting side note, if one goes to http://Dictionary.Reference.com and performs a thesaurus lookup on the word “excrement”, the word “shit” is not listed.
I also have the same confusion over the word “fuck”. In a sense, I have a slightly different understanding about this one because it refers to an act from which we like to insulate our children until they are older. I have my questions about that motivation but we use so many euphemisms in our modern vocabulary, that, just like “shit”, I don’t understand why this particular word gets singled out.
Personally, I think we have a fundamental problem -- now there’s a double entendre -- in that we take form over substance. Maybe we think by establishing some edicts against this or that, we are making our society better in some way. I would argue that we are just avoiding addressing the real issues of being human.
I grew up trying not to use certain words because they were bad. However, precisely because they were so bad, they carried extra impact -- they became part of that special arsenal I could tap into when I really wanted to express an intense emotion. They became Super Words. I imagine that was not the prohibitors’ intentions but I do believe that was the effect.
I fully expect those words to be part of my daughter’s vocabulary. It’s just a common form of expression and personally, to me, they are just other words for a particular meaning that happen to have a short, focused sound that is sometimes desirable for expressing exasperation or other emotions. What I do expect, is my daughter to have the sophistication and contextual awareness to know that some words and concepts are best not used in certain settings. To me, this is just good manners, not law or public policy.
I certainly don’t want our society to fall to some base level of crassness but I also think we need to apply perspective and quit putting these words on a pedestal in a 3-lock box. I wish I could see the N-word de-fanged but that word carries with it terrible social baggage and I respect its infamous history by not using it.
With the F-word and the S-word and probably a few other words, I just don’t see the same impact as the N-word and we don’t think we have same prohibitions against using the N-word. Words are just words and what is important is the concepts they convey, not the words themselves.
Substance over form, please.
