Swearing

[Belaslav]

How is the F word going to affect the kids? They're going to 'turn bad' and start swearing?

Not necessarily. But the less they are exposed to it, the less chance that they will use them here or in real life. Isn't that one of the ultimate goals of any parent? We are just one of the many "stopping points" to prevent it's spread before the kids turn mature and realize that it's not necessary to use those words to vent out their frustration or to prove something.

[Carmasa]

Let us all drop our testes and sprout-a-lump-or-two on our chests.

People, this is a rant, get over it. If you don't want to see it, it's in your best interest to leave as soon as you see the first swear word.

I'm pretty sure the O/P didn't want to cause all of this idiotic chatter amongst over-offensive people. >_>

[Dynamics]

Let us all drop our testes and sprout-a-lump-or-two on our chests.

People, this is a rant, get over it. If you don't want to see it, it's in your best interest to leave as soon as you see the first swear word.

I'm pretty sure the O/P didn't want to cause all of this idiotic chatter amongst over-offensive people. >_>

It's called a discussion not "idiotic chatter". This is a discussion forum, rants aren't immune to discussion either. The OP's asked the correlation between swearing and adverse affects to kids.

Personally I don't think the effect swearing has on kids is relevant to whether or not this forum appreciates it. It's strictly a matter of preference, not to be confused with a matter of justice and morality, which is essentially what you're arguing for. Are there any adverse affects from casual swearing and kids? Let's discuss.

Kids are growing less and less sensitive to swearing in these contemporary times. You're right in the sense they can think for themselves, and swearing is often used so casually it's easy to question whether or not it makes a difference. Adults will generally put the impression on their children that it's wrong to swear because it is supposedly a 'bad influence'.

On this forum we're not necessarily reaching out to children alone, so what I have to say next I express to people of all ages. I agree with the notion casual swearing is not good practice. It's an unconstructive practice. It's detrimental to a persons' linguistic skills.

Good linguistics is needed for reasoning and conflict resolving. If you consistently use an expletive in times of frustration or just casually in general, you're less likely to improve your vocabulary and reasoning skills. Why use an adjective when you can just swear. Why word your problem when you can just vent it through swearing. Why reason with someone when you can just swear at them. Thinking often becomes like this (not all cases of course) unbeknownst to the person swearing.

The more casual swearing becomes in societies, the less likely a person will try to construct their linguistic skills. I suppose the problems stems from expletives being so versatile. The old time notion of swearing "just" being bad is heavily outdated, and is a myth as far as I am concerned. I think the real underlying problem with a person swearing casually, is that it's unconsciously ruining their language skills, and consequently their reasoning skills.

Though people are clearly capable to think for themselves as you've pointed out several times, often people will let the society think for them. People learn from conventions, people fall into conformity. Society affects people whether they realise it or not. A society that allows casual swearing will produce different conventions than a society that doesn't. FiestaFan does not appreciate swearing and I fully appreciate that. I think the rule effectively prevents the potential decline of this forum's posts becoming completely unswaying and lacking of prose. I've seen too many forums that condone casual swearing produce close to zero sense posts. While I can't demonstrate a causal link, I'm sure most would agree with me that there is a strong correlation between swearing and poor language skills. Of course there are fine exceptions such as yourself, but keep that in mind. You're an outly from general society. But you should keep in mind that, just because you're outly from convention, doesn't mean you can be an outly from the rules.

This is a forum. We discuss things. We express ourselves verbally. I think it's important to create the best environment for that. And I think the relatively lenient rule on swearing is a good move by the forums. Not only does it cater for people who may slip a swear word once or twice, but it leaves the discussions on forums as relatively clean and precise as they can be. I could've easily expressed my frustration to this thread with a few expletives, but I'd rather not.

I should reiterate after writing so much that whether or not swearing is a just practice is irrelevant to the rules here. They are simply not appreciated, and gathered from your posts I'm more than sure you understand that already.

[Blaaaaaaaah]

^ The above post is long, but read it before you post another argument for swearing. Pretty much said everything I want it to say.

I swear when I'm pissed off. I think everyone in here also does that.

I don't, actually. =/

Everyone sees things different. It's like how you see that swearing will not effect kids, while other sees that it has a bad influence.

We generally make rules on FiestaFan going by the conventional views, or the most favoured views, and clearly from this thread, the majority seems to disagree with swearing, hence the rule.

The degree to which a profanity is offensive relies upon how the use of the word affects an individual. Some will consider the original meaning of a word (for example, the sexual act) to be offensive or a subject not fit for polite conversation (cf Ephesians 5:3 "..it is not right that any matters of sexual immorality or indecency or greed should even be mentioned among you. Nor is it fitting for you to use language which is obscene, profane or vulgar.") while others will have no objection to these subject matters. Some will feel that certain words, having an established social taboo are simply offensive, regardless of any context; others will find profanities offensive mainly when used in a way deliberately intended to offend.

As for how it may affect the younger generations, read Dynamic's post. It's very well posted. It's long, but worth a read.

Edit:

Just another thought. Take this analogy. Has your parents, or anyone, ever nagged you? Don't you get annoyed when they repeat the same thing over and over again? "Do you work!" -1 minute later- "Have you done it yet?" -2 minutes later- "Hey have you done your work?" -1 minute later- "Make sure you do your work!"

Doesn't that annoy you? It's like that effect. They may nag you once or twice, fine, but when they nag you just way too many times, it drives you nuts, wouldn't it? You may swear once or twice, but when you do it excessively, it gets irritating for members.

I'm not asking for the definition of swearing, thanks. The discussion is about the effect of swearing on kids (and people now) not about defining swearing. And I didn't offend or insult anybody when swearing. Sigh seeing as you don't like to take in people's opinions, go ahead and do whatever you want with this thread. I don't want any more c--- aswell.

Mmhmm, I thought a definition is enough to show how it will effect kids as well as other regular members? Well, believe it or not, Wikipedia had a whole article on swearing, but I highly doubt they can write so many lines of "definition". For your convenience, I have actually skimmed through and pulled a bit in Wikipedia that will tell you how it will effect kids, as well as other people, since this is what you wanted to know:

Profanity has therefore always been used to describe a word, expression, gesture, or other social behavior which is socially constructed or interpreted as insulting, rude or vulgar, or desecrating or showing disrespect as measured by the religious elite

Why would we want to expose children to an excessive amount of material that teaches them insulting, rude, and vulgar behaviour?

I didn't paste the link there just for the definition, you know. It would have been nice if you gave it a skim through.

If that isn't enough:

http://www.cusscontrol.com/swearing.html

http://www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/Heal...np=287&id=1538

"Swearing in public upsets many people. It is really verbal harassment if other people can hear it.

It is good manners to remember where you are and think about other people's rights and feelings. Everyone has the right to feel safe and having to hear loud nasty words can make people feel unsafe. If people are annoying you by using bad language move away from them and don't use it yourself."

Many other people in the thread also stated other reasons how it may affect other members. If you don't agree with any of them, then it's just the matter perspectives, I suppose.

Of course, this is a topic that pretty much just involves the conflict between different perspectives. Some people see swearing as okay, some people don't. On FiestaFan, we just go by the majority. I am referring back to FiestaFan since I assume the discussion was created from your disagreement about the rule.

If not, to me, it's just a difference in perspectives. I guess there isn't any absolute "right" or "wrong", but the convention is that it's seen as degrading, as shown from the links/quotes I have included above.

If you are not referring to the rule, then perhaps maybe I should have moved this to General Discussions. I'm not really sure what you're arguing for anymore - whether you are arguing for:

- Why swearing is alright; or
- Why is occasional swearing on FF okay but excessive swearing is not okay.

I've typed the post up to explain the latter, but if you're after the first point, then that's not really the purpose of my post to persuade you to think like I do. Just simply explaining why the rule is there.

[Lady-Loki]

Since this thread is a result of the thread with the excessive use of profanity think about it this way:

In a public shopping area you hear some guy says a cuss word as he talks to someone but it really didn't register an alert to you. One or two people hear and think "how un-mannered". However, if this guy lets out a string of 12-15 cuss words you hesitate and you as well as a dozen or more people will stop to see what is going down.

It is really the same with most anything when it is taken to an excess.

One weed in the lawn - no panic.
A dozen weeds in the lawn - someone is doing weeding this weekend.

Some guy drinks a beer - no one really paid attention.
Some guy drinks a dozen beers - people worry if he is gonna fall and break something.

One car wreck on the highway - nothing on the evening news.
A 12 car pile-up on the highway - Story on the evening news.

It does make a difference in many things when there is an excess.

[PoisoN]

^ so tru, juggling 2 knives is okay, but 20....

[moparisthebest]

The main idea of how swearing is a bad influence on kids is a thing I agree with. But some things I still don't agree with. It's that if I swear here, I know this is not good for the 'under 10-ish' I don't really understand how it will effect them. Why do I say this? Because from somewhere they will come across swearing/bad words sooner or later I can guarantee that it's inevitable.
Sure I sometimes swear but that doesn't mean that swearing is always bad. It can express feelings emotions etc. But it doesn't mean that I'm not taking in responsibility.
As for the repeating of swear words, I don't know really pissed off that time that's why I posted on the All the Rage board but I don't know why it's fustrating to see a word repeated several times. If I was another person viewing the thread it wouldn't be such a big deal since the post does not affect me, distract me or harm me in any way, and I can choose to not view it. But if I had a person shouting several times for me to do something then that would be fustrating because I'm being annoyed, my ears will be hurting, the message is being targeted at me, I can't concentrate on what I'm doing etc..