Effin' n' Jeffin'

I say we remove all censorship from swears, sexual phrases, and racial slurs.This would remove the concept of such things within a couple of generations, as if no words are prohibited, then none are stigmatised.

For instance, the word f--k. It is one of the most versatile words in the English language, for frak's sake - it can be used as a verb, a noun, an adverb and an adjective - yet we either bleep of blank it out when it appears in songs or on television before 9 O'clock (a purely arbitrary time, surely, in this age of on-demand viewing and 'plus' boxes), all because it's a "dirty" word. When censored in such a way, the quality of these media are very noticeably reduced - who hasn't been annoyed when listening to a song containing expletives that has all these gaps in the vocals, upsetting the vocal rhythm? Or been watching a program that, when a character says the frankly weak, "ass," has short periods of total silence - silence that one would normally associate with a fault in broadcast?

Words that describe the anatomy, such as "ass" (corrupted from arse, but the more commonly heard of the two in television), c--k, or t--t, when censored, surely show a childlike embarrassment in regards to such things? A censor would not censor "penis" or "vagina", as these are medical terms - why is the distinction made for slang?
When one removes the stigma and the shame from these words, these words lose their power. I'll explain my meaning: say a man A is angry with man B. A says of B, "You're such a penis". It seems childish, amusing, and without any real power as an insult. Consider, however, A caling B a pr--k, a c--k, or a d--k - this is clearly an insult, as man A is using a "bad word". Therefore, if we remove the stigma from the latter three words - bringing them into true equation with the former- they lose their power as insults.

The area of racial slurs is not such a simple one. If we allow musicians to use them in their work unrestricted, then, yes, as the words enter the day-to-day lexicon, they will eventually be seen as synonyms. On the flip-side, however, if we cease punishment of aggressive use of these terms, then those who would use them to cause harm would be free to do so. I say this, however: this does not matter. I'm not saying that using such a word aggressively is without moral negativity, but this use would only last a generation or two - again, if no stigma is placed on a word, it loses its power. After all, racial slurs can lose their meaning in less than a generation - the word "black" was once considered offensive, the word "coloured" acceptable, and now the reverse is true; who's to say what will and will not be acceptable in 50 years time?

This last point, "who's to say..." can be said of all such words - s--t was a perfectly acceptable word in this country 1000 years ago - why shouldn't any word become stigmatised? Why shouldn't any word have it's stigma removed?

SF

Capitalism makes me :(

I was listening to one of those adverts earlier that made me want to never ever use the service/buy the product (I can't remember what it was for, so I guess my resolution failed) when I realised: They Don't Care ^TM.
This rather made me sad. No matter my attitude to something, no matter how strongly I feel, no matter how far into the moral right I am, unless the majority of people feel the same way, it doesn't matter

Welp, goodbye

SamfiSh
(The home of They Don't Care ^TM!)

Dayum

This new design makes my blog look so much better!

Carry on
Sf

Salut!

Merci bonne chance? Bonjour madame et monsieur, comment êtes-vous? Je suis un bon champagne. Rhinocéros, et la pamplemousse.

Hi there, inter-folks!

I feel I need to compensate for the absence of Tobiwan. I don't have one of my own, but Google hath provided:

George Osborne has set out plans to set out a four-year plan. Oh yes, George, because those long-term plans always come to fruition...

I was going to do a blog about the BBC news website headline, but now can't come up with any comment. This whole "do blogs in daylight" idea appears to have truth in it.

Oh well. I need to a-bed-u-late.

Watch out for Con-Gratulat Ions, folks, they're lethal

SamfiSh

Edit/P.S.  This is what I mean by "do blogs in daylight" - it's a proper post!

Hello, dear listeners.

It's been quite a while.
Sorry.

Well! My life has been shuffled a tad since last we spoke. I am now possibly going to live in Cardiff for a year. Apparently a nice city, and also the setting of Torchwood. It'll be interesting and straight up weird living in a new city, with strange people, in a new church. After all, I've attended NKCC my whole life, and visited very few other churches. Hopefully I'm making the right choice here, but if I'm not: whatever.
I think (probably erroneously) that it'll be easier to sing in front of people I don't know, so maybe the whole "worship leader" thing will be advanced faster than if I had remained where I am. Throws the "start a band like Larry Mullen did" idea out the window, but again to that I use my teen prerogative and give the answer: whatever. What shall happen will happen and what won't wot'n't.

My plans to write a comic are still going. I still need a drawerer though.

Enough boring you! Away with me!

SamfiSh