h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm putting all the previous discussions on swearing in one place so they're easy to find: The one with Ben's expletives document: Subject: Noohootoo: standards of behaviour Posted Jun 12, 2011 by kea http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/F19585?thread=8238874 One of historical interest: Subject: Use of profanity -- What's the [] use? Posted Jan 12, 2003 by Griffon http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/F19585?thread=237761&skip=0&show=20 Will have a look for the others later.

Why are we worrying about something as mundane as swearing when people can be incredibly nasty and hurtful to one another? - such as I feel happened to me the other day. No-one batted an eyelid about it...except tarantoes was very supportive.

There's all these discussions but the reality is that nastiness and abuse will carry on.

Sorry to be offtopic though.

I don't much like very explicit swearing online really.

If someone makes a comment you feel is deliberately and maliciously intended to hurt you hit the Yikes button, that's what it's there for! Such posts *are* against the house rules.

Anyway, back to swearing. (knickers! )

Yeah it has hurt me more than you can imagine.

Because I don't yikes though I wouldn't know what to say. I suppose just that it was calculated to really hurt. Thanks Mr. D.

On the whole, unless I have just stupidly injured myself I do not find a need to swear in day-to-day life. There are plenty of strong and colourful ways to express extremes of passion and ideas without a need to cuss. Of course, that's just my opinion

Yeah lets get rid of swearing.

Swearing has never been approved of, it has just been disapproved of with varying degrees of consistency and success.

I was being a bit ironic in my last post because of other priorities.

I actually think if there is the right cultural atmosphere on noohootoo it will sort itself out naturally. People may swear occasionally in extremis.

But if people turn up and show no regard for that..something can be put in the rules.

I completely agree with you Effers, that it's a cultural thing.

How best to foster and encourage that culture, though?

And whose culture? The several hundred distinct ones across Canada, how-ever many ideas of the same in the UK? Europe? There is no 'single' culture that I think the site can ascribe to, unless it will become specifically home to one small region.

And lose everyone else

No doubt, like all idiots around the world, one will attempt to flout the House Rules. If we are going to be a family site again, swearing should be stamped out immediately

lil x

I know of some families in which the 6-year-old cusses out the mother, with language that my military compatriots would blush at, others where even the gentlest of words for excrement are not spoken.

And that is just a small town of about 18,000 people.

Just trying to point out that language and "culture" are really based on a great variety of locations, norms and conditions

And yes, idiots do abound in any number of flavours. With and without authority behind them too. Just saying ...

*blinks*

>> And whose culture? The several hundred distinct ones across Canada, how-ever many ideas of the same in the UK? Europe? There is no 'single' culture that I think the site can ascribe to, unless it will become specifically home to one small region.

*peers at Nick as if he's sprouted a second head*

The site's culture. Doh!

We've a very different culture from Wikipedia, Facebook, and from the YouTube and Flikr Communities. Our new members will come from all over the globe but far more worryingly from all over the internet.

Sorry to be scathing, but I find it really rather odd that you thought I meant a geographical culture, not an online one.

(I also feel like I am turning into Effers now!)

B

But that IS a part of the thing I was trying to suggest. Ways and means that I might chat with my neighbor might be really scowled at by some in India, or even parts of England. If I were to express to someone here that "someone's really getting on my ", they would think I was being quite crude. Trying to find a middle ground for 'acceptable behaviour', without broad swathes of muffling and blanketing, would be about as easy as coming up with a list of words that should not be allowed so as to avoid 'offence' here or there or even there.

Well it develops doesn't it...it's a creative thing..a process of evolution like any culture, that's the fun..at least I hope it's mostly fun. But it wouldn't be fun in any case without the uncertainty. You can't control it..well a little bit.

(Mrs Zen you should watch that ).

Please, let's not institute unilateral bans on any words. Context is important. I'm not advocating a free-for-all on swearing, as I'd hate for this place to become like many forums around the internet,like youtube comments or elsewhere. But I don't think it ever would anyway. Words, even "bad" words are important and useful.

Also, the idea that the young need to be protected from certain words is simply ludicrous. A) words do not hurt anyone. They may offend someone, but you can't control what someone else may be offended by. They allow themselves to be offended. The F-word, on its own has never given anyone gout, never broken a bone. B) Kids know these words anyway. No matter how saintly your little angel may be, she does know cuss words and probably uses them regularly, just not around you.

These words are part of our society, our culture, our lives. They have a value. This community has high standards and does a fair job of policing itself. Having certain language automatically banned assumes otherwise.

For more on this subject, I highly recommend a documentary, the name of which I cannot currently use here but can be found on this page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0486585/

Agreed, they're just words, and unilateral banning is a bit... daft... Can we not have a Houserule along the lines of 'persistant and excessive swearing in posts, or a series of posts from a single user will be consdiered to be against the ethos of the site, and posts and or researchers ability to post may need to be regulated if a user insists on excessive use of expletives...' or some such...

2legs, when you come out with totally coherent and useful stuff like that, I do begin to worry about the universe. But words almost precisely such as you have writ sound like a perfectly acceptable 'rule'