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Cursing as Peephole Into Brain Architecture
tabdelgawad writes "The New York Times offers this excellent and entertaining writeup on cursing and its role in recent studies of the brain. The article discusses the universality of cursing across time, space, and culture, its varied roles, from linguistic evolution to anger management, and its uses in recent brain research. You can also read all about the sexual effects of uttering obscenities and the swearing habits of sorority women." From the article: "Researchers point out that cursing is often an amalgam of raw, spontaneous feeling and targeted, gimlet-eyed cunning. When one person curses at another, they say, the curser rarely spews obscenities and insults at random, but rather will assess the object of his wrath, and adjust the content of the 'uncontrollable' outburst accordingly." As someone who plays a lot of MMOGs, in my experience this is only mostly true.
I wonder how Wimpy Curses work vs. Real Curses. I myself don't have a tendency of cursing I tend to use the old curse or wimpy curse words like "Dag Nabbit!", "D'Oh", "Arg!", and "Crappy", and "Cruncy". I tend to shoot them out just as often and with little though like other people shoot off Real Curses.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I just had to say it. Sorry.
"Cats like plain crisps"
There is no fucking way that this bullshit is anything but bullshit! Motherfucking fuckfuckers! Fuckshitfuck! Fuck!
Note to mods: I'm probably being sarcastic.
"Damnit! Damnit Son of a Bitch!" -- Beavis
I wonder what all this cursing really did for Beavis?
Generation Trance: What generation are you?
but if you write down what he says, and read it back, it makes sense!
Mostly random stuff.
It's not lewd. The salesman in the quote is behaving as a dog does, so get your own mind out of the gutter.
You fucking bitch. YOu obviously don't pay a single fucking bit of attention here. There's a fucking random quote at the bottom of the damned page, and it's changed every fucking day, so just so fuck yourself you fucking bitch.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
Ignorant fucking cunts don't know what they're talking about.
Sorry, I have Homer Simpson willpower
Oh Shit! Did I think that out loud?!?! Man I'm going to look like such an ass! I'll never be able to make another comment and be respected around here agian!
New slogan: "Cursing, does a body good."Generation Trance: What generation are you?
What about the perpetual fuck as a comma crowd though? How do they fit into this? Are they de-sensitized?
THat's not entirely true. A single swear word can be, well...
Rocco: Fucking... What the fuck. Who the fuck fucked this fucking... How did you two fucking fucks...
[shouts] FUCK!
Connor: Well, that certainly illustrates the diversity of the word.
(quote shamelessly stolen from The Boondock Saints)
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
hey say, the curser rarely spews obscenities and insults at random, but rather will assess the object of his wrath, and adjust the content of the 'uncontrollable' outburst accordingly."
And that expectation (which we all have) is why it's so damn funny in Office Space when Samir, the non-native English speaker, is cursing completely inappropriately. SON OF A F$*(!
A computer without Microsoft is like ice cream without ketchup.
If we want to really clean up government and speed up processing in the criminal justice system, we should put $100 million into fMIR as lie detectors.
We could have an electoral truth telling challenge between candidates to see who's telling the truth and who isn't.
Abstinence is a government conspiracy. www.SafeSexZone.co
I curse you from this day on to never have rest, to die alone and in pain, may your lungs burn, may you go to prison to become the pox ridden sex slave of everyone there, I curse you with skin ulcers and boils, and rotting of the flesh, your body will become so foul that even the hyenas, rats and maggots will not be able to eat your diseased meat.
Why are you in particular offended "as a mother of three"?
First of all, there are no women on Slashdot. All women on slashdot are actually men pretending to be women. Therefore, you cannot be a "mother of three".
Second of all, are your kids insane? Is this why you are offended by the quote? They bay at the moon?
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
+1 for Boondock Reference.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
I think that researchers who study the evolution of linguistics really don't care much about the "experiences" of "someone who plays a lot of MMOGs".
I want to propose that language is an advanced form of cursing.
See, TFA says kids pick up naught words based on how they are used by adults. Let's take the example of a child watching you building a house with a hammer and nails-angry curse words are usually the first thing that come to mind when you hit your thumb with a hammer.
But, if you say something like "dag nabbit", your brain has clearly had time to consider saying "fuck" and discarded it as vulgar. Hence, you've taken time to think about what you're saying, and your comment gets stored in a different location of the listening child's brain (and they go to a different place in the listening adult's brain).
So, relax, you can say all those words all you want.
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
when the oil his your anus!!!
piss fag mothafuckings pussy orgasm fingerfuck prick ejaculated blowjob pissering cocksucking slut pussys fucking kum shitings fingerfucked motherfuckers pornography cumming mothafuck blowjobs pissin mothafucks fistfuckers gangbanged kondum pissing fuck cumshot pissoff fingerfucks fistfucking fingerfucking cock cocks ass farted gaysex fellatio hotsex gangbangs bitcher lusting cocksucks cocksucked cuntlick fuckme lust porn cyberfucked mothafucked cyberfuckers mothafucking cyberfuck orgasm faggs phonesex fingerfuckers fistfucker pornos beastial fuckings bestial shitty fistfuck fucks bastard fagot cuntlicker smut kummer jizm mothafucka orgasims fucked mothafuckas horny phuking fistfucked ejaculation phuked motherfucked mothafuckers farts motherfucker pisser farting bitch fistfuckings mothafuckin cocksucker fagging cocksucking cum goddamn phuq fartings motherfuck bitching kumming ejaculatings fucker mothafucker pussies horniest dildos spunk cunts shittings cunilingus phukking asshole motherfuckin cunt assholes cyberfucking phukked twat jack-off orgasms beastiality cummer phuk jerk-off cunnilingus clit kock farty jism jiz bestiality faggot motherfucks fuckers shitters porno fistfucks beastility damn motherfucking fuckin mothafuckaz shitfull gangbang cums phuks kums hell dildo slut motherfuckings bitchin shitter cunillingus fuk bitches shit shitted bitchers felatio cuntlicking fagots fingerfucker cyberfucker ejaculating ejaculates pissed dink shitting ass prick fart of an asshole.
I know that I tend to react "guiltily" to being challenged, regardless of whether I'm actually in the wrong. I suspect this is a consequence of the fact that, when one's parents are enraged at, for example, the paint on the walls, one's guilt or innocence (no really, my sister did it) ceases to be an issue. Then if, as I suspect, the detectable physiological reaction to guilt is fear-based, it could be that the so-called "liars" just had parents who were a bit hasty with the shouting and the smacking and the grounding. Hardly a basis on which to lock them up.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
Which brings me to the question - why does WoW let me say 'crap' - but not 'LSD' ?
I personally think that WoW should have a 'receive' foul language option to increase entertainment.
So if two people both have the flag on - they can spit what ever they want at each other.
Sort of like VpV.
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
I have no idea where they got that (and many others of their facts) from, but wiktionary says otherwise. It seems to be pseudo-researched with a couple of reputable quotes here and there... Oh well.
To the point, in reference to their Stroop test (on page 2), where people were startled by obscene words moreso than neutral words, I find it to be the reverse in "comfortable" environments (as they vaguely mentioned). That is to say, so many people swear habitually that it's not even a big deal in casual situations. To find someone that says "poop" instead of "shit" or something unique and unsensical like "fatty arbuckle!" instead of "fuck!" tends to startle people in surprize. At first, at least.
The novelty of profanity has been worn out to the point where it doesn't have the desired effect anymore. Therefore, I subscribe to the alternative: Using unique and creative utterings to describe my feelings.
This way, after people get to know me, and get used to me being profanity-free, and then one day I get REALLY pissed off and say FUCK, they know I MEAN IT!
Works wonderfully. Plus, makes swearing that/i much more fun.
- shazow
PC Loadletter, what the fuck does that mean?
-my inner racer is pointing at him and laughing.-
apparently no one got the joke from South Park (TM)
Yes, they are. I suspect that in their case, the effect of the word has worn off on them, and the word "fuck" is no longer stored in the area of the brain wherein the other curse words are stored. Instead, it is stored along side of "like" and "lol" and the other overused (and therefore worthless) words.
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
"....and double-damnit on you!"
How long have you been on Slashdot? And you still feed the trolls? This is one of the more blatant trolls...
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
That in some people, myself included, curse words don't even come up as options so they don't get evaluated.
Fuck the FCC. What gives them the right to decide that a word is improper? It's a fucking word. Get over it. If it's ok to convey the idea how can it possibly be wrong to convey it with a certain word?
The FCC shouldn't be in the business of setting moral standards.
it's the only thing holding this family together! ... nutty fudgkins!
Another interesting observation was made by George Carlin. He was essentially guessing that teaching somebody not to use certain "bad" words is the first step in teaching them to be complacent. If you can teach them not to make certain sounds, you can teach them not to yell at authorities. Often, people who play the "word police" are very controlling. Of course, cursing is not a sign of an educated person, but when you hit your shin on a corner of a desk, "fuck!" is a more appropriate response than "I think I experienced pain" ...
A religious war is an adult version of a fight over who has the best imaginary friend
And could you have said that without making it sound offensive? Without the gratuitous use of the word fuck it may actually have had some merit as a statement.
Why is it that words come to be 'forbidden' after normal usage before. At one time, none of the swear words used today existed. Remember, someone had to invent all of these words. On the flip side, why is it that swear words, after repeated use, lose their 'evilness'?
Nowadays, the phrase, "Oh, golly!" may be considered almost comically wholesome, but it was not always so. "Golly" is a compaction of "God's body" and, thus, was once a profanity.
Is it that profanity is in the eye of the beholder? If I were talking to somebody in a room can call the person a 'fucktard', chances are the person I'm talking to would take offense. But in a different scenario I'm talking with a French man that doesn't know a word of english. Now I can call him whatever-the-hell I want to. And just as long as I'm using the inflections in my voice as if I were telling a joke, he wouldn't know any better than if I were telling a joke.
What makes a word a word? It's not the arrangement of the english characters on the post card that offend me - the association between the arranged letters on the notecard and my past experience with that word that makes it vulgar. Ever since we have been children we have known which words not to say - not by the letters F U C and K, but by the face on my pissed off mother. That surely would explain why a child, illiterate or foreigner wouldn't find our swear words offensive.
So, after reading the article, I question the reactions that the tested subjects had to the swear word on the card. We aren't born with these conections in our head, they are learned.
Lastly, another question for the readers: Can swear words be taught out of existence? You would think that if people stopped taking offense to swear words that people would stop using them. It would make sense that if we were taught that 'shit' was a synonym for Cotton Candy, then it wouldn't really be offensive.
Feasible? bs? i dunno...
Slash-for-Thought
Is that why flame wars are so popular? "IE is more secure than Firefox!" or "Vista is cooler than OSX!" gets the brain boiling? Slashdot must really thrive off this whole effect. They should study us.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I disagree. To lie is part of the human condition. We lie to others and we lie to ourselves. These lies need to be said and thought for survival purposes.
Are you telling me you want a government who cannot lie at all? What happens when they have to lie to state or non-state adversaries? Are you going to want the greatest truth tellers then? People who are unable to lie? What if humans work out a way to beat the machine (which always happens) through finding new ways to skew the 'truth' with language and controlled emotions that don't set off the machine? Would you want these advanced liars as your leaders?
What about the criminal justice system? You say it'll speed up the process. Who exactly will we be testing for the lies; the perpetrators, the witnesses or the victims? If you've read any forensic psychology you'd know that remembering certain criminal acts is always a fuzzy deal and that people never rememeber the whole 'truth'. It will be very subjective and you would still have an adversarial system in place of "he said, she said" so it would be just another bit cog in the wheel of bureaucracy.
It might get us closer to a little 'truth' but it sure as hell won't speed up the process nor will it guarantee total truth-telling.
Quoting a reference from the 1940's (ok, it was Doc Smith, but he was a product of his time and highly idiomatic in his choice of language) a pre-modern perception was that men swore and women didn't. "Men swear to keep from crying, women cry to keep from swearing" quoth Kinneson. Both functions were considered equivalent mechanisms for blowing off steam.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Fucking great idea. I think I'll watch it too! I totally forgot about that whole fuck spiel. Haha, good stuff. :)
*everyone turns around and stares*
What? I said shit.
No you didn't. You said 'shazbot.'
I...left the stove on. *runs*
you can have my violent video games when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Prime UID Club
Very good :) I was also reminded of this, and of George Carlin's "fuck" monologue ;) Also WP has a nice page on the word Fuck :)
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
The Alternative Dictionaries
2743 Curse and Slang words in 162 different languages.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Yea, the part about the sorority girls. I was pretty dissapointed. Here's the whole quote,
"The investigators have found, among other things, that men generally curse more than women, unless said women are in a sorority, and that university provosts swear more than librarians or the staff members of the university day care center."
There. I saved you 5 mins of reading just to be dissapointed that there wasn't really anything about sorority girls and sex, just cursing.
FUCKING COOL !
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
This just about sums up my view on cursing. http://www.moviesoundscentral.com/sounds/fuck.wav
TFA:
"The title "Much Ado About Nothing," Dr. McWhorter said, is a word play on "Much Ado About an O Thing," the O thing being a reference to female genitalia."
You've got to be shitting me.
from the article:
"Researchers point out that cursing is often an amalgam of raw, spontaneous feeling and targeted, gimlet-eyed cunning"
WHAT THE F%@k IS "gimlet-eyed cunning"!?
Sorry....I guess I lost it there....
A goal is a dream with a deadline
try Russian:
:)
Yobanaya v jopu pizda, suka bliad', xuinia zadrochennaya molofeinaya, zalupa zloyebuchaya, pizdenishy pizdostradatel'nye prihujarennye, huila bl'adskij suchenysh' gnoinyj bliadopereyobannyi
The only word above that was not a curse word was 'v' (meaning 'in').
You can't handle the truth.
The taboo sense of a word, Dr. Burridge said, "always drives out any other senses it might have had." How does he explain, then, the new Direct TV ads built around use of the word "sucks"? In this case, it appears the accepted meaning of the word (is of poor quality) has driven the taboo sense. Is everyone else too young to remember when "sucks" was an expression not to be used in polite conversation... unless you were referring to pacifiers?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
80 comments and counting and I'm still yet to see a CUNT around here...very disapointing...oh, wait...this is slashdot - no girls allowed.
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Fuck; ....often used as a meaningless intensive...
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Just wanted to let out my frustration.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
"How is that possible?" You might say here is how it is done.
You have a Post that is moderated +5 Funny then some one gave it a Mod of Troll because they personally didn't like you. Then an other moderator decided to moderate you Underrated. So the label of your moderation will keep in place of the last change because overrated and underrated moderation don't change your title. using the process in reverse it is possible to get a -1 insightful which is also pretty cool
Did they find translator microbes ?
Please enjoy this meaty passage (my favourite, especially the last sentence, somehow the BDSM enthusiast in me rejoices :-P ) I took it from the "New International Version" on http://biblegateway.com/, see this link, too: http://bible.gospelcom.net/passage/?search=Deutero nomy%2028,%2015-68;&version=31;
15 However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.
17 Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.
18 The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.
20 The LORD will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him. [a] 21 The LORD will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. 22 The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish. 23 The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. 24 The LORD will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.
25 The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth. 26 Your carcasses will be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away. 27 The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. 28 The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. 29 At midday you will grope about like a blind man in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you.
30 You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and ravish her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit. 31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them. 32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand. 33 A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days. 34 The sights you see will drive you mad. 35 The LORD will afflict your knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.
36 The LORD will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your fathers. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. 37 You will become a thing of horror and an object of scorn and ridicule to all the nations where the LORD will drive you.
38 You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it. 39 You will plant vineyards and cultiv
..I love the French language...especially to curse with...Nom de Dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperies de connards d'enculés de ta mère. You see, it's like wiping your ass with silk, I love it.
Surely you mean "Fuck you very much, the FCC".
I grew up in jamaica, a culture which has perfected cursing almost to a theraputic artform. when I'm in the US cursing in jamaican is like cursing at a chalk board since nobody understands you it has no effect. however if I curse in english I almost feel neutered it's just not the same. Then all the rage that is pent up inside has no where to go.
One of my favorite things to help temper yet revel in my anger is to string a continuous stream of curses without repeating inside the stream. For some reason "jesus mother fucking christ on a god damn piece of shit syphilitic crutch" comes up frequently when I do that.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
In my opinion, this article is a bit biased against those that want to limit cursing. I don't say this because I champion their cause.. I'm rather indifferent to curse words having grown up in the age of today's media... but rather because it seems like a correct observation on my part so I wish to explain myself (fully acknowledging that I might be wrong).
The article mostly explains the study's view that cursing has been around since the beginning of human language. The premise is that cursing is a natural aspect of human communication. Yet no where does the article attempt to explain why some might want to curb it. In fact, the article seems to portray those people as oppressive and uninformed somehow, which I believe is unfortunate as far as promoting a healthy discussion on the issue is concerned.
If I can capture that unrepresented side here... cursing is the expression of (usually high) emotionally-charged thought. Often, the objective of cursing is to bring the other party into the same emotional state as the curser (otherwise the curse word would be considered ineffective to begin with). Like in animals, a stage like this is always the precursor for physical confrontantions. So, in some ways, those against public cursing are trying to sway our animalistic confrontational/emotional nature so as to mantain societal order and promote more logical communication strategies. I think any reader on this forum would appreciate this almost Vulcan type of philosophy.
So cursing, in some people's opinion, is an approach to communication that stiffles logical discussions/debates. This is an opinion that this article seemed to prefer to mock rather than explaining in a balanced way and letting their viewers decide themselves about.
Fuck the FCC. What gives them the right to decide that a word is improper? It's a fucking word. Get over it. If it's ok to convey the idea how can it possibly be wrong to convey it with a certain word?
And could you have said that without making it sound offensive? Without the gratuitous use of the word fuck it may actually have had some merit as a statement.
Yes, I say we ban all phonemes which, in our language, carry implications of offense and/or hostility.
(I sure hope sarcasm isn't next).
candidates telling the truth...
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Here:
:)
http://tekka.sys-techs.com/TSRumble.avi
A player in EVE completely lost it on teamspeak, the results had to be censored to get on the game forums, but the rest of us enjoyed it anyway
In SOVIET RUSSIA the hot grits profit you!
babblefish didnt make sense of it - please translate
I'm also vastly amused by a /. article that lets us all use as much vulgarity as we want without getting modded -1 Flamebait.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
At one time most people would have taken great offense if you called them feisty. No longer, since it is not used to mean someone that farts a lot.
So, people have not stopped using the word, if anything it is more used. It just no longer means what it used to.
Bart: It will be like Treasure Island, only with more swearing. We'll be kings. Damn hell ass kings!
You donkeyhumping popefelchers! Only grabastic nunblowing babyraping cumburpers use such pedestrian terms like "Fuck".
On-the-fly Creatific Curse Constructions, is a great way to keep even the most guttermouthed cock-master off guard in a linguistic duel.
Hey they forgot the mother of all public cursers; Dick Cheney!
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
--A young Professor runs around the lab, shrieking "EUREKA" at the top of his lungs and grinning like a madman.--
Grad Student: Hey Professor, what's going on? did you spill the bromochloride down your pants on accident again?
Professor: I have had, perhaps, the most wonderful epiphany. It's BRILLIANT, BRILLIANT I TELL YOU.
Grad Student: Okay, I'll bite. What is it?
Professor: You know the Tri-Delt Sorority next door, the one with all the hot women that wouldn't speak to us unles we paid them?
Grad Student: Yeah...
Professor: Well, we're going to pay them to talk dirty to us.
Grad Student: But we barely have enough for Ramen noodles. We cook them here and pack them in our underwear for heat at night. Where are we going to get money?
Professor: That's the genius of it! We'll come up with a grant proposal for a cognitive study about swearing! Then we just tell them we have to find some local subjects who swear a lot, and we're SO IN!!!
Grad Student: It'll never work...
after 4 airports, 3 planes and too many time zones, I just wanted to say thanks for that.
... as Kubrick said when overseeing the translation of Full Metal Jacket to Italian. We have the most diverse, obscene, blasphemous curses you could imagine. Having lived for centuries under some form of domination has refined our hate speech to unmatched heights. Hey english speaker, can you ever imagine cursing the divinity itself. Not a cursory "goddam you" which we consider old fashioned eloquence, I mean a real "bestemmia", sometimes blunt, hieratic, icastic, creative, periphrastic... I can think of dozens of them... prêt à porter... unrepeatable... ;-) I mean all you have is *[fuck|fucking]*, we do much more
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
As someone who plays a lot of MMOGs, in my experience this is only mostly true.
Sorry, Zonk, being a prolific poster on Slashdot doesn't count as an MMOG.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
I hate it that 'cunt' the worst way to abuse someone. It's so friggin' mysogenistic.
Those of us who know one well or have one would agree that they're fantastic. Likewise the Dalai Lama.
I’m old enough to remember 16K of memory being described as “whopping”
Cum-guzzling road whore
I still laugh just thinking about it.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
TFA summed up: Researchers discover that people curse to express themselves
Ok, yeah, that's a pretty obvious conclusion. We, as people, generally don't spout things for no reason (no, I don't want to hear an example of [insert politician here]). Curse words are very descriptive, emotionally charged words that give a huge amount of emphasis to things we say.
Example:
"That sucked."
Cursified and intensified: "That FUCKING sucked."
Though I admit the electrodermal reactions recorded from hearing a curse are interesting. It gives a physiological tie in to the concept of using language in a way to convey or induce feeling and emotion.
Support Liberty, Support Ron Paul
I can only admire people who can curse fluently, creatively. There is a certain rhythm to it. Cuss words? More like the difference between a quickie and a solid good fuck.
Into English: fuck fucking fuck shit piss fuck fucking fuckers.
Like he said, english is not the most versatile swearing language.
That whomps!
---
the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
Nice troll.
Also, I'm offended by the word 'gratuitous'. I'd appreciate no one ever using it again, please. Thanks.
http://xkcd.com/386/
When one person curses at another, they say, the curser rarely spews obscenities and insults at random, but rather will assess the object of his wrath, and adjust the content of the 'uncontrollable' outburst accordingly.
So, they're saying that the madder we are, the more we swear, possibly taking consequences (getting fired, a good ass-kicking) into account, rather than just letting fly with a random string of curses of indeterminate length? wow. once again I am blown away by professional researchers.
coming up next week: which work better, springy clothespins or the other kind?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I think you'd be surprised at what researchers can consider interesting. If MMOG's exhibit unusual or emergent new uses of language, then linguists might very well be interested in players' experiences. Games are common human activities after all, and countless monographs have been written on physiological and social aspects of sports, chess, NASCAR, and yes, video games.
Freedom: "I won't!"
I Can See The Start Of A Tiny Halo
Enjoy.
This story is just an excuse for everyone to say fuck.
Dammit, this is going to be redundant, I'm posting anon.
This should have completely disappeared with the ball-style typewriters. Dvorak tried. That article is good. Read it if you are interested.
"Let's see if Qwerty has a verse for us..."
My swearing repertoire tends to involve ad-hoc variations around the themes of christ, and mules. "Illegitimate son of a mule", "Mule shit", "Christ on a stick", "Sweet smoking baby jesus" etc... These things are usually quite obscene and make my christian friends uncomfortable some of the time if I inadvertantly rant in their presence. But at one time, after a particularly unfortunate and annoying accident, my brain - searching for an insult - decided that the absolute ultimate combination of my themes in the most brief and compact expression of extreme frustration possible would be to exclaim loudly "Oh .... Christ on a Mule". ... which had the unexpected result of my xtian friends bursting out laughing, probably because they had expected something much worse and it was so innocent; and pointed out that Christ did indeed travel on a mule or similar to Bethlehem. Thus endeth the lesson: mixing metaphors can fuck up your shit.
...flirking snitt!
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
Spock: Your use of language has altered since our arrival. It is currently laced with, shall we say, more colorful metaphors, "double dumb-ass on you" and so forth.
Kirk: Oh, you mean the profanity?
Spock: Yes.
Kirk: Well that's simply the way they talk here. Nobody pays any attention to you unless you swear every other word.
Spock (to Kirk): Are you sure it isn't time for a colorful metaphor?
Spock: They like you very much, but they are not the hell "your" whales.
Dr. Gillian Taylor: I suppose they told you that.
Spock: The hell they did.
remember to conjugate those Russian curses.
Otherwise you might be saying some equivalent "male bitch" or "she fucks him up the ass" or something else as ludicrous as "son of a fucker"
Cursing in a foreign language is like saying "fuck you!" in a way that the hearer ideally doesn't have to translate. It is important to recognize the value of such exchanges.
But doing it wrong is just insulting - it says you really don't care.
I have relatives who, unfortunately, live in Alabama. Several years back I visited them, and watched a football (soccer, in America) game my nephew was participating in. In any case, one of the other tots sustained a rather horrid injury. He was kicked in his manhood, and basically his scrotum was split wide open, with one testicle even lying on the ground. As would be expected, he was on the ground in extreme pain, basically yelling "Oh fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Oh fuck!" over and over again.
Now, a teenaged football player screaming at the destruction of his genitals was not what surprised me. It was his mother who surprised me. She appeared far more concerned by her son's use of "fuck", rather than his obliterated scrotum. She kept telling him not to swear, because "Jesus would not approve". I found that absurd, considering English did not even begin to form as a language until well after the death of Jesus.
In any case, I find it quite amusing how far some people will take not swearing. Even to the point of chiding a suffering child over their use of such words.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Go suck a fuck!
How, exactly, does one suck a fuck? Yeah, please tell me.
Hamlet: Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
[Lying down at Ophelia's feet.]
Ophelia: No, my lord.
Hamlet: I mean, my head upon your lap?
Ophelia: Ay, my lord.
Ham.: Do you think I meant country matters?
Oph.: I think nothing, my lord.
Ham.: That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
Oph.: What is, my lord?
Ham.: Nothing.
Incidentally, Much Ado About Nothing is about both the effects "casual" conversation and the implications of real and perceived sexual relationships.
An explanation of my choices for friends
When "vulgar" meant "common", "common" was a derogatory term used by nobility or the upper class referring to something that someone less proper/educated/intelligent than themselves would say/do.
Why do I never have mod points when I see the awesome people?
---
The only thing I hate more than a hypocrite is a person who hates hypocrites.
Generated by SlashdotRndSig via GreaseMonkey
Why is it that when you believe something it's an opinion, but when I believe something it's a manifesto?
Someone please grep fuck slashdot_achives | wc -w I'm dying to know.
We really need your help
http://www.gofundme.com/help-sherry
You're wrong: it's complaining (attributed to Lily Tomlin, I believe).
Get your Unix fortune now!
Try Hindi too - helpful while cussing call centre staff
Behenchod (Sisterfucker)
Maachod/Maaderchod (Motherfucker)
Gaandu (Someone who likes it up the ass)
Chutiya (Fucker)
Maa ki chut (Your mom's pussy is my property!)
Behen ki chut(Replace above cuss with sister instead of mother)
Behen ka lawra (You are your sister's dick, i.e. boning her).
Cheers
My Favourite Meme
Yobanaya v jopu pizda, suka bliad', xuinia zadrochennaya molofeinaya, zalupa zloyebuchaya, pizdenishy pizdostradatel'nye prihujarennye, huila bl'adskij suchenysh' gnoinyj bliadopereyobannyi :)
Da? Putzalut moi shzopa, balshoi durak. Ti javnó sviñá.
There is a large and ancient subculture in Mexico known as the "albur", a play of words, used mostly by men, that contains a hidden message, particularly about sexually dominating the person you are speaking to. It comes from the natives being subyugated by the spaniards, and shooting a hidden meanings at your dominator was a way to achieve minor victories every day.
Nowadays, the "albur" is deeply rooted in many sectors of Mexico's working class, has become a game and secret society of sorts, and there are hundreds if not thousands of possible retorts (new ones are invented virtually every day). The point is to shoot back and forth until one of the two "players" is at a loss. There is always the danger of messing up and causing a self-inflicted goal, to use a soccer reference. Think a much subtler and faster version of "8 Mile's" rap face-offs, and you get the general idea.
A few people speak like this all the time, you're trying to have a normal conversation, then suddenly whoever's around is smiling and you have absolutely no idea what the hell just happened. An extremely small percentage of foreigners are aware that the "albur" exists, much fewer still understand it, virtually none are any good at it, and this includes people from other spanish-speaking nations.
Now, Spaniards are particularly blunt and nasty in their usage of profanity, the undisputed kings of Tourette's: "Bola de jilipollas, ostia joder, que me cago en la leche de su madre".
That last expression translates into "I shit in your mother's milk".
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
Excuse me, did he just say "making fuck"?
Did they also bother checking what happens if you look at certain pictures?
You know, as a non-English speaker, there's something weird with this type of censorship.
/very/ common swear-words...)
I'm from Europe, and we also use the AmE 'fuck' quite regularly when swearing (and 'shit', both
Now, Hollywood started to stop using the word 'fuck,' and the bad guys started using 'screw' instead
Funny thing is, for a lot of us non-English speaking people, we initially thought 'screw' was a much 'dirtier', obscene, obscure.. word than 'fuck' !
Most of us thought it was a genuine 'street' word, heehee.
Some of us were even a bit schocked by this 'in-yer-face' screw word. It sounded a bit too... graphic.
i kid you not.
So, they're saying that the madder we are, the more we swear, possibly taking consequences (getting fired, a good ass-kicking) into account, rather than just letting fly with a random string of curses of indeterminate length? wow. once again I am blown away by professional researchers.
I think what the summary is referring to is how we adjust how we swear to whom/what we are swearing at. For instance, if I am upset with my girlfriend, I am more likely to call her a "bitch" than a "bastard". It isn't because "bitch" is worse/better than "bastard", only that it is more applicable given the context.
P.S. as a side note, I like using words/phrases such as "fiddlesticks", "golly gosh darn it", or "thats poopy". I find that humor quickly dispells anger.
If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
I was told the word fuck was an acronym for:
Fornication Under Command of the King
-or-
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge
basicallly it has to do with totalitarian governments and religions controlling human breeding. That is why you call a dumbass "fucker" who was created for the sole purpose of fodder for a big war a "fucker".
what does that tell you?
Peaches, is that you ?
If you have a ballpoint pen that will not write, but clearly has ink in it, don't do meaningless zigzags and scribbles in the hope of persuading some ink to flow from the nib -- just try writing a swear-word with it.
Four times out of five, it will magically start working again.
I have no explanation for this phenomenon, and you probably won't believe it at first, but don't dismiss it till you've tried it.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
P.S. as a side note, I like using words/phrases such as "fiddlesticks", "golly gosh darn it", or "thats poopy". I find that humor quickly dispells anger. EXACTLY- poop, poopy, that's poopy, your butt is poopy, pooptastic, etc. are great! Especially the looks co-workers give you when you use them.
Registered Linux User #404114 [url=http://www.punkoiska.com][img]http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/4379/posbannercf5.g
I love the fact that swearing has much in common with music, and can be used almost musically. For example frequent swearing often has a staccato form, and for much of its effect lies on its "use" of cadence, similar to language, usually the perfect cadence, the resolution. Here is a a great example of staccato swearing form from the one and only Mr.Bergis, he has a gift. http://media.ebaumsworld.com/bergis-gayschool.mp3
We taught our foreign exchange student that "woodchuck" was a swear word.
He would use it occasionally, when he was upset.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
I notice everyone calling it "cursing"... Is it just where I live, but... Mostly people I know call it "swearing".
According to m-w.com, they can be used in an equivolent fashing, but... to me...
A "curse" is something you get in an MMORPG, a "swear" is something like fuck or cunt or fiddlesticks. (I live in the northeast usa jftr, a nd of course jk on the fiddlesticks, ha)
I learned in highschool that the typical current set of swear words are older english, words that were used before the french influence on our language...
Consider that swear words are often quick "grunt" type sounds compared to the "flowery" (if-you-will) french/latin sounding words...
Obscene - Mostly Polite
Fuck - Copulate
Shit - Defecate
Piss - Urinate
Dick,cock - Penis
Cunt - Vagina
A quick m-w.com lookup shows that most of the words are derived from middle english, and other words such as fuck are derived from northern european languages, such as fuck (sweeden/holland).
I also believe (although I do not have a source readily available) when france overtook the british courts -- they mandated the use of french in the courts, which I believe to be related to contemporary swearing and the phrase "Excuse my french".
"What the copulate?" (polite french for WTF)
Speaking of vulgarity, from TFA...
With the help of a small army of students and volunteers, Timothy B. Jay, a professor of psychology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams and the author of "Cursing in America" and "Why We Curse," has explored the dynamics of cursing in great detail.
Am I the only one that found that funny?
This is a bit off topic, but since we're talking about cursing, well, what the hell.
There's a movie by the name of The Aristocrats floating around in the art house cinema circuit right now that is all about profanity and shock. If any of you have seen a South Park clip where Cartman is telling a particularly vile joke to the other boys that none of them seems to understand, you've seen the bit that Trey Parker and Matt Stone did for this movie (and trust me, that's one of the most boring bits in it).
Penn Gilette (of Penn & Teller) got the idea in his head to make a sort of documentary about this format joke called The Aristocrats, whose sole purpose is to be as vile and vulgar as possible. Comedians won't typically perform it in public because it'd be censored utterly in any venue. Instead, they tell it to each other as a kind of secret handshake... the joke really brings out each comedian's style clearly when they tell it.
There's about a hundred comedians on the cast list, and it contains just about every one you've ever heard of. See for yourself over at IMDB.
You won't find it in any major chain, since it's unrated (the profanity would have undoubtedly merited an NC-17). You probably can find it in some of these independent theaters.
No torrents yet. I suspect it's damn hard to pirate a film out of an art house... if the patrons catch you, chances are you won't last long enough for the police to arrive and haul you off. The DVD will be on sale from ThinkFilm in a few months if you can't find it elsewhere.
Don't go thinking it's just one long retelling of the same ditry joke. There's several narrative threads about profanity, censorship, and society in general, and the good versions of the joke are radically different from each other, so there's nothing repetitive (except the theme, anyway). Wait until you see Billy the Mime's version... and just watch the people walking by on the street behind him when they see what he's doing.
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
What about cursing and cultural/class status? As a young lady (many moons ago) I was taught that nice people curse in French. Vulgar people resort to the anglo-saxon.
On a related note, if you want to disguise the fact that you're a prissy^W^W^W^Wthat you don't swear, then the next time that something bad happens, repeatedly say the word "itch" very quickly (or very quickly say it repeatly).
You'll know that you're not swearing, but everyone else will think that you are.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
So? Try Russian 'Blatnaya Fenia'. It's a sublanguage used mostly by prisoners or former prisoners but parts of it made it into the street culture. The language also is spoken in codes, where seemingly normal words are put together into totally incomprehensible sentences so that even the native speakers cannot figure out what is being said.
Smotri, kozel, za gnilye bazary maslinu v makitru na raz.
(I just promissed to put a bullet into your stupid head, but literally it is translated as: look, goat, for rotten markets olive 'makitru' (not translatable) at once.)
You can't handle the truth.
Words are just a series of sounds that form some type of meaning to the person or people listening. Just because one religious yin-yang says that the sounds that form the word "fuck" are vulgar and obecene, that's their FUCKING problem, not mine. Its just a word...get over it.
The title "Much Ado About Nothing," Dr. McWhorter said, is a word play on "Much Ado About an O Thing," the O thing being a reference to female genitalia.
C'mon ... this is from the Onion, and the MSM blindly picked it up ...
When people talk about being "conscious" they are mainly describing a feeling rather than a logical process. Dennett describes such in his several books on the subject. Minsky's sequel to the articial intelligence Society of Mind is titled The Emotion Machine, and is about the role of emotion in intelligence. No wonder strong emotion is at the root of human language ability.
When I'm that frustrated, I normally end up letting rip a bunch of Klingon curses, (though many of them are nonsensicle)
I'm confused - not about curses, tho - what's not to get about tty I/O? I didn't think anybody was using that manner of witchery anymore.
/^#.*$/
TFA seems to have more to do with regular expressions
there are NO BAD WORDS.
There are bad actions and bad thoughts, but no bad words.
Substituting other words in order to get past the thought police is ultimately futile.
Their objection is to the thought itself, and then only in permissable contexts. (Remember Lenny Bruce?)
The contexts are in the arena of permitted knowledge and reflect a power structure in their minds.
And YOU don't have the power (no one does.) Though they will repeat a particular word "ad nauseum" in their condemnation of you for using a particular word, THEY don't have the power either.
It is a reflection of a particular mind set wich empowers words, like "evolution" and "birth control," far beyond the actual utterance of the sound. These people are against thought itself.
Beware of these people. They are Osama Bin Laden wanna-bes in their attitudes toward thought. Silly, superstitious souls who believe in the power of uterances. (They are the ones who actually believe in demons, angels, and Chthlu myths.)
They are uninterested in your own thoughts except in preventing you from having any. They feel that if they stomp out the words, they stomp out the thoughts.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Anyone else remember the skit on The State (remember that?) when they did a version of the play "Tenement" cleaned up for television?
"POOP! POOP! Oh, I killed the old fork and spoon raspberry. Darn me to H-E-double hockey sticks!"
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
these people are anti-media.
They only have one book, you're supposed to memorize it but not interpret it as that is reserved to a particular cadre of intellectuals.
You don't "need" anything else.
Why do you think Mullah Omar was against everything that even smacked of education?
Ignorant people, really dirt-poor, ignorant people were the only kind who would put up with his trying to tell them how to do anything and everything; from when to plant their crops, (they had a fall back in case of extinction from starvation: "It is the Will of Allah!") to what hand to use to wipe their own asses (assuming they hadn't cut if off.)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Examples I have recently overheard include:
It's not even as if he's really boiling mad about anything. Even the most minor disappointment or inconvenience is met with a stream of profanities. I sure hope he's on vacation during "take your child to work day."
My point is that I doubt he speaks this way to his wife and kid(s). Why does he do it at work? It's not impressing anyone, but nobody has the balls to tell him to stop, even though it's offensive and distracting to all within earshot of his rants.
Not all of us grow up wanting to live in a frathouse for the rest of our professional lives.
We taught our foreign exchange student that "woodchuck" was a swear word.
He would use it occasionally, when he was upset.
Now that is downright hilarious. We never thought of doing that to our foreign exchange students. We just taught them the real swear words, and they taught us the real ones too.
For example, if you want to really piss off a German, say "Ich bin einen Wasserbuffelkopf".
It means "You are a scumbag nazi jackass whose mother sleeps with horses"... loosely translated of course.
I remember the first time that I casually dropped "fuck" in a conversation that my mother overheard...her reaction was hilarious. She gave me this look and started to lecture me and I just laughed at her...ahhh to be in 8th grade again. Then again, I also would swear in my classes; teachers never got on my case though it's just a matter of employing your vernacular properly.
:)
I still get a reaction when I drop "cunt" in front of my mom though; that word brings me pleasure like none other [no pun intended or sick joke intended]. She gives me this look like "What did you just say" and I just smile and say that the person I was referring to deserve it
To be fair, I never dropped "cunt" while I still lived at home; I suppose it's the freedom of not being supported by your parents anymore...
Oooh, oooh, I know! You spent over a hundred years in cryo-freeze, and the speech center of your brain was damaged to the point that you were left with only the words that evoke the greatest emotional response with you!
See, dad, reading sci-fi novels really does provide me with information I can use in the real world!
In the interest of allowing us to properly insult any Hindi speakers without having to explain it to them, vould you please provide a pronounciation guide to the above?
k thx
He has a consice explanation of tourettes syndrome
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
One thing I can't really get my head around about western culture is that the worst curse/insult is the C-word. So the worst thing you can ever say is basically 'vagina'.
Why is it that such a wonderful part of a woman (that us blokes spend so much time tring to get at) is the worst possible insult?
Why is calling someone an arsehole or a cockhead not nearly as bad as calling them a c*&t???
I'm a perfectionist but I'm trying to cut back.
"Wasser" means "water", and "kopf" is head, so what you are really saying is "I am a water [something] head."
Or are you trying to pull on us what we pulled on our foreign exchange student?
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Or are you trying to pull on us what we pulled on our foreign exchange student?
No, I was trying to be funny by pretending I'm even dumber than I am.
The joke was that the foreign exchange student pulled on me what you pulled on yours.
It would translate (assuming I got it right) as "I am a waterbuffalo head".