Re: Looper's Delight offensive language policy (not)

[mark francombe <markfrancombe@gmail.com>]

Hey Tyler,
It could be that I am one of the worse offenders on this list! I swear and curse by nature, but hopefully not as a lazy excuse for poor
vocabulary.
I was brought up in a rough and dangerous city, and I guess the language of the streets just stuck.
No word offends me like some political views or business practices offend me, a word is simply a word. However words have power, and it's important not to abuse that power, all over used words lose their power in a way, and thats a shame.

I remember a New Yorker friend of mine once saying that the f word was so overused that New Yorkers would use it to greet each other as in...

STREET DUDE (on seeing a long lost friend)
"Hey Fuck you!"

STREET DUDES FRIEND
"Hey fuck you dude"

Hence a much more flowery and eloquent form of insult had emerged to make up for the fact that the usual words had now lost its power.. as  in...

1) Hug my nuts you stinking sack of shit

2) Love my butt hair

The other thing to bare in mind is that these words have a long and illustrious history, Shakespeare used the f word, Chaucer used the c word. And every country has different ones. Fuck for example is not a rude word at all here in Norway, as its a foreign word. And when a film came out here a few years ago entitled "Fucking Åmal" an English friend stopped in horror and pointed " you cant write that down the side of a bus!"

As for the use of profanity on this list, I generally think that, age is not relevant, no one is 9 years old here... and even if we are not, we should all behave as adults. That means we should not really be shocked by the words that other people from other backgrounds and cultures use, but should also not deliberately offend.

If I have offended you (really) by use of the f word or some other than I really truthfully apologize, as it would not be my intention ever to do so, however, I do not (as others profess to do) act or write any differently here than I do in any other situation, except perhaps when I am with my elderly relatives, my customers, or other peoples young children. (I'm abashed to say that my own son has heard all manner of filth from these lips.

Its a very interesting point you bring up Tyler, as always, and IMNSHO totally ON TOPIC, because, although the primary reason we are all here is looping the secondary reason is community, and this community spans different countries, cultures, religions and as such is what makes it so fascinating.

To close I would like to present a wonderful video by a renown Norwegian video artist about the most significant Norwegian swear word. If you want to learn a little of this endangered language, this is good place to start. Don't worry, its in English.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkJf0md1kG8

Mark

On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 9:16 PM, Tyler <programmer651@comcast.net> wrote:

Hello! I don't know if anyone has ever paid attention to this, but have you seen how many people have gotten
away with swear words on this forum? I remember when we were having a thread about why
loopers-delight.com was so out-of-date, but the forum part was as lively as heck. Someone used the
F word "Why does everything have to be so f***ing up-to-date?" (I censored the word out so I
don't have a bad track-record on this mailing list). And I read the help file (the one that you see
when you send an invalid command to the subscription server), and even THAT file had some (yet very mild)
language toward the end. Now, I've seen bad language in forums, and if I would have signed up
five years ago, I would be long gone by now; I'm less sensitive. But this site is where
musicians can communicate with each other, and talk about electronic music technology, share
links, write articles about their technology ... but randomly putting the F word in the middle of an
article about Mobius? I'm confused! In the days of Kim, would he get upset when someone used a
word like that?
Tyler Z

-- 
mark francombe
www.markfrancombe.com
www.ordoabkhao.com

twitter @markfrancombe
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