I said
what Times Square "was"
I'm confused,
What's the big deal about a club where performers
perform live before a live audience songs of great emotion? What
do you guys have against Barbara Cook or Bobbie Short? Do
you prefir the Telly where you can wander in and out and the performances are
canned and you can open your beer without anyone
complaining? Times Square is a wonderful place since they
cleaned up the garbage and the sex shops. Even Walt Disney is
there. To compare it to the hyper inflation and the hopelessness
of pre-Hitler Berlin just shows how long you've been
away. Come on in folks the water is fine. You
too could have a good time and real live performances can be a bracing
experience.
Ray Evans Harrell
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 3:55
PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] social
trends: Profanity
It
seems that civil society, religious training, schooling, socialization,
manners, etiquette is what society created to keep some form of
order. Some form of predictability.
When all of society becomes what Times Square was, then we are
looking at Cabaret, ie., Berlin circa 1930.
arthur
The good society can look
very bad at times and even pretend to be Cabaret, but it is still the good
society as long as its institutional anchors are in place: recognized rights
and freedoms, honest and capable courts, sound educational, social and
health services (even with considerable quarrel over what "sound" might
mean), a sufficient body of aware people who are in a position to make
a fuss when standards are slipping too far.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003
10:57 AM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] social
trends: Profanity
It seems that civil society, religious training, schooling,
socialization, manners, etiquette is what society created to keep some
form of order. Some form of predictability.
When all of society becomes what Times Square was, then we are
looking at Cabaret, ie., Berlin circa 1930.
arthur
Good points, Ray. There is so much
that is tawdry in the world that profanity in language may be the last
thing we should worry about. We have an amazing capacity to debase
and cheapen. When TV was about to come into daily use, idealists
predicted that it would lead to a better informed and clearer thinking
public. Look at it now! The same goes for the
internet. Even though my ISP cuts out 90% of the spam I might get,
I still get an awful lot of stuff that says I should enlarge my
penis!
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, September 24,
2003 11:40 PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] social
trends: Profanity
Profanity with language is no different
than cheap thoughts in music and the other arts. No one
complains about the adults and their old tawdry R & R and our
favorite country western vulgarities. Its one thing
for the children but its quite another for old folks whose brains are
not capable of enjoying a complex musical thought. I
don't find one inanity less inane or appalling than the
other. To hear them then complain about street language
when they defend such in their extra-linguistic tastes is confusing to
say the least. I grew up "in the street" and worked my way
out but that included more than mere words. I would suggest that
we stop "calling the kettle black." Television is
Entertainment for the sake of selling soap and cars. What
more would you expect? We reduce great possibilites
to mere "free ridership" for commercial reasons and then complain
about the taste being cheap? Well its supposed to be cheap
and appeal to the baser instincts. That's what selling is
all about. Did anyone see that Tammy Faye has
written a new book about how she's "survived?" I've
never seen such "ass-kissing" of an idiot from all of the serious
press in my life. That wasn't a profanity but a mere
statement of fact. I once saw a Tammy Faye
little blond haired rag doll that when pressed screamed in the ugliest
voice you could imagine "Jesus loves you." Its all
down hill from there. That is profane, black English is
just vernacular street language and is as capable of beauty
as Dylan, the Beatles or Frank Sinatra.
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, September 24,
2003 5:34 PM
Subject: RE: [Futurework]
social trends: Profanity
Swearing and profanity at home or the schoolyard is one
thing. It is quite another when TV and radio ups the ante with
simulated sex and lavish use of profanity. This is a trend
that is not self-limiting, it will only be changed (I think) by some
form of censorship, probably coming from a religious
angle.
arthur
I think this kind of thing comes
and goes. My older daughter, very bright kid and high
achiever, turned the air blue everywhere she went when she was a
teenager in the late 1970s. One of her daughters is about to
enter here teens and her mother is very conscious of her
daughter's vocabulary (the hypocrite). My present teenage
daughter (second marriage) who has just entered university is very
different. She will occasionally use a four letter word but
is almost mortified at doing so. Maybe she's hung out with
the wrong crowd?
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, September
24, 2003 1:50 PM
Subject: RE: [Futurework]
social trends: Profanity
There will be a reaction to these
trends. What form will it take? Is the
fundamentalist movement now underway part of that
reaction?
Arthur, although I have a
handful of "cuss words" in my vocabulary, I try to use them
selectively, as one does very hot spices, appropriately and
sparingly.
But I have noticed that my
grown daughters use profanity much more than I do (or
like). I've also
noticed that one of them uses it more around certain males, as
if to say, don't mess with me, even if she is not discarding
that one to romance purgatory.
Should we blame television
and rap music entirely?
I think there is an epidemic of abusive language that
has to include sports, where tough talk and mean looks are
often considered necessary to the game. Profanity has shock
value. That's why
it's so prevalent on dumbed down television and in music. I believe linguists
still track slang as a juvenile phenomenon, and perhaps there
is a link to slang and profanity in pop culture. Much of TV seems to be
written for juveniles by juveniles, anyway. Mostly, however, we may
have more profanity because we have less great vocabulary
being spoken
I tried to influence my
girls that "potty mouths" have poor vocabularies, obviously
not with great success it seems. However, I also noticed that
my daughter who curses more around men her age does not do
this in front of her young son, her father or her
grandparents. She
will, however, purposely annoy me, and then twist the knife by
using a good vocabulary word I haven't heard her use
before.
Sigh.
-
KWC
What we already
knew. Wonder why its happening? http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/23/tv.profanity.ap/index.html
Study: Use of profanity
increasing on TV "During the 2002-2003 season, the
broadcast networks attempted to rewrite the book on
language standards for television," the Parents
Television Council, a watchdog group, said in a report
released Monday. The council said it studied all primetime
entertainment series from a two-week period in 1998, 2000
and 2002 and found a jump in profanity on "virtually every
network" and in every time slot. The group called on the TV
industry to "get serious about reducing the flood of
vulgarity. ... Barring that, the FCC needs to get serious
about enforcing broadcast decency laws," the group said of
the Federal Communications Commission. The study
examined ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, WB and UPN. During the
so-called "family hour," from 8-9 p.m., foul language
increased by 94.8 percent between 1998 and 2002, the study
found. It rose by 109 percent during the 9 p.m. hour in the
same period. The smallest increase, 38.7 percent, occurred
during the last hour of primetime, 10-11 p.m., when young
children are least likely to be in the audience, the
council said. The group noted what it called "minor"
improvements. Foul language in the 8 p.m. hour on Fox fell
25 percent in the study period. But the study found
profanity rose 75 percent during the 9 p.m. hour on
Fox.
On ABC, offensive language decreased by 17 percent
in the study period, mostly because of improvements during
the latter two primetime hours. But profanity was up by
61.7 percent during the family hour, the study found. An
ABC spokesman Monday said the network had not seen the report
and declined comment. A Fox spokesman declined
comment. In a similar, earlier study, the PTC found that
sexual content on TV was less frequent but more
explicit.
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