Eloquently and succinctly stated. I would like to join your vision. Great thinking.
Respectfully,
Thomas Lunde
----------
From: "Ray Evans Harrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [Futurework] social trends: Profanity
Date: Thu, Sep 25, 2003, 7:02 PM
It depends upon what kind of society you want. I prefer one that stresses the importance of personal development of individual potential over the accrual of personal wealth. One that stresses personal cooperation and freedom that ends only where the other person begins. Intelligent choices about culture and sensible sustainability with natural resources for the good of the whole society and not for a single individual or their personal family. I believe that health, food and shelter should be assured and that education should be a requirement for children and for those who are going to be parents. For I believe that a person who is going to have children without intelligent education is a person who is likely to transgress on the rights of the individuals who are their children and society will eventually have to pick up the tab. I think that such fake issues as language, except for good communication, should be consigned to the garbage can. I think that cultural sophistication should be a requirement for those who deal with other cultures.
Got to go to work.
Ray
----- Original Message -----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 10:31 AM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] social trends: Profanity
So, where does society draw the line? Or, better, how does society know when its crossed the line?
Or does society care? And when this happens what do we mean by society (apologies to William Jefferson Clinton)
arthur
-----Original Message-----
From: Ray Evans Harrell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2003 11:41 PM
To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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 -----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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
-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Weick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2003 4:39 PM
To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [Futurework] social trends: Profanity
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 -----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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?
-----Original Message-----
From: Karen Watters Cole [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2003 1:30 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] social trends: Profanity
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.
_______________________________________________
Futurework mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
|
