Vowels and consonants

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Today's Frazz:

Update — A sample of relevant earlier LLOG posts. "Taking the fun out of cussing since 2004":

"The FCC and the S word" (1/25/2004)
"The S-word and the F-word" (6/12/2004)
You taught me language, and my profit on’t / Is, I know how to curse”, 7/17/2005
"Curses!" (7/20/2005)
"Call me… unpronounceable", 9/6/2005
"Thinking specifically about the F-word", 4/2/2006
"Goram motherfrakker!", 6/7/2006
"The history of typographical bleeping", 6/10/2006
"The earliest typographically bleeped F-word?", 6/15/2006
"Beetle Bailey goes positively meta", 6/22/2006
"More @!%!**#~@#!! wisdom from Beetle Bailey", 6/23/2006
"Everybody's going meta", 6/23/2006
"Avoiding the other F-word", 7/4/2006
"Presidential Expletive watch", 7/17/2006
"We only take shit from the president", 7/19/2006
"Words of curse", 7/19/2006
"C*m sancto spiritu" (8/7/2006)
"Obscenicons in the workplace", 8/24/2006
"Oh sleepies!", 8/30/2006
"Typographical bleeping antedated to 1591", 11/20/2006
"Oh tabernacle! What the wafer!", 12/5/2006
"More about cussing in Quebec", 12/6/2006
"Nigger, nigger, on the wall", 12/11/2006
"2500 words for cursing the weather", 1/18/2007
"On the offensive language beat: Use vs. mention, avoidance", 1/23/2007
"Taboos of the nation" , 2/2/2007
"Swearing and social networks", 1/19/2008
"Reading the ampersand comics!", 3/21/2008
"Spiral thingy lightning bolt!", 3/20/2008
"Reading the ampersand comics!", 3/21/2008
"A little more on obscenicons", 3/23/2008
"Seven words you can't say in a cartoon", 7/4/08
"A few dollops of taboo avoidance", 8/17/2008
"The FCC, Fox News, and the modest New York Times", 11/2/2008
"Taboo toponomy", 1/24/2009
"Comic profanity", 4/26/2009
"'Pound sign question mark star exclamation point'", 7/17/2010
"Obsenicons a century ago", 7/17/2010
"More on the early days of obscenicons", 7/24/2010
"Another meta-obsenicon strip", 5/11/2011
"Translinguistic taboo avoidance: Arabicizing'Ayrault'", 5/17/2012
"'Not just any sale, it's a #$&@^' sale'", 1/9/2012
"Not taking shit from the president?", 6/1/2014
"The paucity of curse words in Japanese", 9/4/2014
"The paucity of curse words in Japanese, chapter 2", 9/15/2014
"WT[bleep]", 10/30/2014
"Curses! Introducing a new blog, 'Strong Language'", 12/17/2014
"Dropping the H-bomb", 1/5/2015



27 Comments

  1. ThomasH said,

    March 22, 2015 @ 11:59 am

    Those that want "trigger warnings" and object to "hate speech" need to read this.

  2. Adrian said,

    March 22, 2015 @ 12:43 pm

    Thomas: Are you objecting to objecting to hate speech?

  3. Mara K said,

    March 22, 2015 @ 12:53 pm

    @thomasH I think you're missing the point. Frazz is saying that taking offense equals taking control. I don't think that's strictly accurate: I think swearing is a way of taking advantage of people's tendency to take offense and thereby controlling their reactions. But, at least in the comic, it seems to be an effective deterrent to convince kids that swearing gives the people it offends power over them.

  4. MrFnortner said,

    March 22, 2015 @ 4:21 pm

    Offense, like beauty, resides with the observer.

  5. tpr said,

    March 22, 2015 @ 6:46 pm

    The listener may have some control over whether they take offence in some contexts but I don't think it's particularly relevant in the case of swearing. Swear words are conventionally used to offend, but it's the inference that follows from this that carries the potential for hurt rather than the words themselves. A listener can reliably infer that a speaker who is swearing in their company either intends to offend or is ignoring any sensitivities he or she may have about it, and realizing that someone is willing to ignore your concerns can make you feel disrespected regardless of whether you happen to have any.

    This is quite unlike the kind of offence that people take to things that generally aren't intended to offend.

  6. Michael Watts said,

    March 22, 2015 @ 7:00 pm

    Swear words are conventionally used to offend

    This is more a statement about the culture you're personally at home in than a statement about swear words.

  7. Matt said,

    March 22, 2015 @ 7:29 pm

    Speaking of taking the fun out of it…

  8. tpr said,

    March 22, 2015 @ 7:56 pm

    @Michael Watts

    Swear words are conventionally used to offend

    This is more a statement about the culture you're personally at home in than a statement about swear words.

    There is a convention that establishes them as taboo words within a culture. What I said was a statement about cultures insofar as each culture has different conventions about what are considered swear words, but I don't really see what distinction you're trying to make.

  9. hector said,

    March 22, 2015 @ 11:51 pm

    "I don't really see what distinction you're trying to make."

    — Well, in some (quite a few, actually) male subcultures, you're considered a milquetoast (though it's unlikely that's the word that would be used) if you don't swear. In other words, not swearing is offensive.

    "swearing is a way of taking advantage of people's tendency to take offense and thereby controlling their reactions."

    — Swearing, being a common human activity, has many purposes and functions. If you don't swear when you hit your thumb with a hammer, well, aren't you a saint. People commonly swear into the ether (i.e., not at other people) when they are frustrated or irritated by the maddening minor catastrophes of daily life. Sometimes people swear when they're feeling joyful. Children swear for the giggles. Some people swear when they're having sex.

    One could equally well say, "taking offence at swearing is a way of assuming superiority over others and thus taking advantage of them, and expressing your disapproval is an attempt to control their actions."

  10. Jon said,

    March 23, 2015 @ 2:24 am

    The whole point of swearing is to offend (though not necessarily the person you are speaking to). If a swearword offends no-one, not even the most sheltered maiden aunt or the hypersensitive parents of a toddler, then it's not a swearword, it's just a word.

  11. tpr said,

    March 23, 2015 @ 5:21 am

    @hector

    Well, in some (quite a few, actually) male subcultures, you're considered a milquetoast (though it's unlikely that's the word that would be used) if you don't swear. In other words, not swearing is offensive.

    Yes, but in a context in which swearing is offensive, it's because the offended party is interpreting it in terms of the particular conventions that apply in that context, conventions that allow the listener to infer that the speaker either has hostile intentions or is insufficiently concerned about the listener's sensitivities to inhibit themselves. Swearing upsets people by accurately communicating these attitudes.

    The communicative function of swearing appears to be connected to the effort associated with inhibiting our inner Tourette. Among close friends or lovers, swearing may communicate intimacy by giving the impression that you're not holding anything back. In other contexts, polite speech demonstrates your willingness to inhibit oneself for the listener's benefit, so can function to communicate deference or respect. If there were no effort involved in being polite, it couldn't function this way, so it seems to be a kind of costly signalling.

  12. GeorgeW said,

    March 23, 2015 @ 5:25 am

    ThomasH: I don't think swearing and hate speech are synonymous even though both are taboo. They are taboo for different reasons. One could condemn hate speech with all sorts of vulgar expletives.

    Hector: Studies have shown that swearing "when you hit your thumb with a hammer" can actually relieve pain.

  13. Michael Watts said,

    March 23, 2015 @ 7:33 am

    The whole point of swearing is to offend (though not necessarily the person you are speaking to). If a swearword offends no-one, not even the most sheltered maiden aunt or the hypersensitive parents of a toddler, then it's not a swearword, it's just a word.

    This isn't true. They remain different.

    When Bono accepted an award with the sentiment "this is really, really fucking brilliant. Really, really great", who was he trying to offend?

    When, all alone, you hit yourself with a hammer, or stub your toe, and swear — given that no one else can even hear you, who are you trying to offend?

    How do you explain the constant generation of euphemistic swear words like dang, shoot, and frick? Those exist to let people get the benefits of swearing without being offensive.

  14. tpr said,

    March 23, 2015 @ 8:11 am

    @Michael Watts

    When Bono accepted an award with the sentiment "this is really, really fucking brilliant. Really, really great", who was he trying to offend?

    When, all alone, you hit yourself with a hammer, or stub your toe, and swear — given that no one else can even hear you, who are you trying to offend?

    In both cases, we can infer that the speaker's feeling is intense enough to overcome an inhibitory hurdle imposed by the social taboo against swearing. Swearing therefore signals something of the intensity of speaker's emotional arousal, but it can only do so by virtue of the fact that it is, by convention, taboo. If it wasn't, there would be no cost to measure the level of emotional arousal by.

  15. Ellen K said,

    March 23, 2015 @ 8:59 am

    I think that use of swear words and what makes them swear words is more complicated than can be covered in a brief description.

  16. J. W. Brewer said,

    March 23, 2015 @ 9:51 am

    Perhaps the punchline should be taken to say "it doesn't matter whether the linguistic analysis offered is fully accurate as long as it disincentives the kid from doing it." One problem is that *all* communicative acts are potentially at the mercy of the listener "deciding" not to impute to the speaker's words the meaning that the relevant conventions will suggest ought to be imputed. So you have the same potential for "loss of control" whenever you speak.

  17. Alan Palmer said,

    March 23, 2015 @ 9:59 am

    Just as explaining a joke takes all the fun away, so does earnestly explaining the impact of swear words.

  18. Chris Henrich said,

    March 23, 2015 @ 2:22 pm

    "No, but he'll take the fun out of it." I had no idea that Mrs. Olsen was capable of such subtlety.

  19. Jon said,

    March 23, 2015 @ 5:55 pm

    "When Bono accepted an award with the sentiment "this is really, really fucking brilliant. Really, really great", who was he trying to offend?"

    No one said that swearwords are offensive in every context. But if they are not offensive in SOME contexts, they have no force.

  20. Steve Rapaport said,

    March 24, 2015 @ 1:47 pm

    Jon says:
    "No one said that swearwords are offensive in every context. But if they are not offensive in SOME contexts, they have no force."

    Jon, is this a case of absolute neutralization of swearwords?

  21. Ron said,

    March 24, 2015 @ 8:56 pm

    Sometimes swearing is lack of impulse control, or even habit. Ask anyone in the real estate business, at least in New York. It's not a mortgage, it's a fucking mortgage, which you need from the fucking bank to buy the fucking building, which you are renting to a fucking tenant. There's no offense given or taken. It's just real estate Tourette's.

  22. GeorgeW said,

    March 25, 2015 @ 5:35 am

    Ron: "Sometimes swearing is lack of impulse control, or even habit."

    I agree with habit, but not lack of impulse control (at least for most people). I have never heard someone slip up due to lack of control in church, for example. Even in passionate debates, candidates are able to control their impulse to swear. In award shows, we have come to expect entertainers to "slip up." We learn when it is appropriate, possible, edgy, or inappropriate and are surprisingly able to regulate our swearing.

  23. Hershele Ostropoler said,

    March 27, 2015 @ 10:20 am

    There's an app that scrubs swear words from e-books, and I'm having trouble thinking of any books that would benefit from that. If you took every official cuss word out of 50 Shades of Grey is there anyone who would say it has thereby been rendered inoffensive?

  24. Niall McAuley said,

    March 27, 2015 @ 11:40 am

    There is a nice experiment on Stephen Fry's Planet Word, where Fry and Brian Blessed both stick a hand into ice water, and keep it there as long as they can bear. When swearing is allowed, Fry can stand the pain much longer, whereas Blessed (habitually very sweary indeed) sees less difference.

  25. Sweary links #6 – Strong Language said,

    March 28, 2015 @ 7:24 am

    […] and consonants: Language Log shares a cartoon on cursing and a mouth-watering archive of sweary […]

  26. Michael Watts said,

    March 29, 2015 @ 7:53 am

    Hershele –

    Lies of Locke Lamora is an otherwise good book with tons and tons of swearing. In my eyes, it would benefit from having been originally written without the swearing, but just removing the swearing will leave you with most of the language not making any sense.

  27. Gene in L.A. said,

    March 29, 2015 @ 1:40 pm

    J.W. Brewer –

    I find the use of "disincentive" as a verb the worst thing in this whole discussion.

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