Deadwood: Vulgarity married to education

[Cerin]

Is it that Prim and Cerin will never have the need to use the F-word simply because the word carries no power for them?

I can't imagine having to use that word to impart the meaning it conveys (as opposed to the emotive interjectory use of the word), because I would choose another way of conveying that meaning. Or put another way, I can't imagine myself engaging in a conversation or act of writing that would necessitate using that word (rather than an alternative means of conveying that meaning).

[axordil]

I can't imagine having to use that word to impart the meaning it conveys (as opposed to the emotive interjectory use of the word), because I would choose another way of conveying that meaning.

Then what you are doing is conveying a subtly different meaning. And there's nothing wrong with that, so long as everyone involves understands that's what's going on.

If synonyms had exactly the same meaning, we would neither need nor use them. But putting on your clothes is not exactly the same as attiring yourself, and a punch in the face isn't quite the same as a left hook to the jaw, or playing some chin music.

[Primula Baggins]

Is it that Prim and Cerin will never have the need to use the F-word simply because the word carries no power for them? Yet if that were the case, surely a word with no power is harmless and can be used with impunity.

Speaking for myself, that isn't really it. I have used the F-word from time to time when I was explosively angry or very frightened; obviously no other word would have done if I felt compelled to use one I so generally avoid. Obviously it has power of a kind, the power to briefly relieve tension—though it probably works that way for me only because I use it not even once in a year.

I usually find it wearisome to listen to people who use that word constantly. Someone like Alatar or Nel, who's intelligent and verbally adept, is always worth listening to no matter what the vocabulary, but for most people it's just a constant drone that makes their conversation extremely dull.

The word has power to relieve emotion for the speaker and to convey emotion (scary emotion) to the listener; but both effects are lost with constant use, and then it just becomes repetitive. I almost never hear the word used as Alatar suggests it can be used, to convey a specific sex-related meaning. It's usually just filler, the first word that comes to hand, over and over and over.

[anthriel]

After reading Anthy's post last night, I had to note that, despite my general defense of curse words as being No Big Deal, I cannot bring myself to use the N-word or the C-word unless absolutely necessary. Those words cause literal physical discomfort for me and I actually find the hard to say. There is, perhaps, some of that kind of physical aversion to other curse words for some people?

Yes! Yes, you understand what I was trying to say.

I, too, lean towards feeling like a word is a word, but then have to pause and say that there ARE words which are upsetting to me, because of the negativity behind them. Racial insults are ugly words. Misogynist words are ugly words.

Because racism and misogyny are ugly, and because those thoughts are represented by those words, I will object to the words themselves... because they are a place-keeper for a level of ugliness that makes me wince to contemplate.


I should have known my yov would know what I meant.

[truehobbit]

I think words only have whatever power we were taught to associate with them.

No matter how you say it, "Flip" will never have the power of "F***", when used with intent. On the other hand, a casual "F***" is no different to "Flip". Its all about the circumstance and use. My argument is that, as Anthy says, there are times when only that word will do.

I'd also like to weigh in on the "N-word" debate. That word simply does not have the power here that it has in the US. Which makes me consider that perhaps what we are looking at here is a difference of perspective. Is it that Prim and Cerin will never have the need to use the F-word simply because the word carries no power for them? Yet if that were the case, surely a word with no power is harmless and can be used with impunity.

The same here about the "N-word". I wouldn't say it because I know of the connotations, and that it's something other people strongly react to, but it doesn't evoke any feelings in me.
There are other words here which, due to similar historical connotations, are also effectively banned, though.

However, it's similar with the "F-word" for me. We don't use it here for expressing strong sentiment (although nowadays you hear from people who try to be cool and imitate English) - so, if I use it, it doesn't feel "strong" or "powerful" in the mouth to me - it just feels dirty.

It's a word that's derived from treating sexuality as something vulgar and 'curse-worthy' and in turn makes the word that describes sexuality feel dirty, too. So, to me, the answer to your question, Alatar, is that even though a word may not have the power for me other people connect to it, that does not mean it's a perfectly fine word.

I also agree that feeling "rebellious" when using four-letter-words is understandable for kids, but it should have subsided when you grow older.

I'm not sure what to say about using other words instead, though.
Really pointless coinages are ok, I think, but if you use any other word in place of a "bad" word, that just means that this other word will for you take on the connotations of the "bad" word and you'll end up with having efficiently removed a perfectly normal word from your active usage.

Anthy, I don't think you just made that up, about words and ideas - I think there have been volumes of academic speculation written about that (only I couldn't now remember whose theory says what). But I think your ideas are in good company.

[anthriel]

Anthy, I don't think you just made that up, about words and ideas - I think there have been volumes of academic speculation written about that (only I couldn't now remember whose theory says what). But I think your ideas are in good company.

Well, I guess I felt I introduced the phrase here in this thread. I was just giving myself license to quote myself.

[vison]

Well, you know, f*** was once just a word that meant sexual intercourse. It wasn't coined to be degrading or salacious. It has a perfectly respectable etymology, which was discussed at great length earlier in the life of HoF or maybe B77.

F*** fell out of polite usage over time, then became taboo, as did many other old words once commonly used for body parts or functions. When I was a child, I never heard it said aloud. My Dad carefully said "teet" for "teat", when the word ought really to be pronounced "tit". Coarse farmers said "tit", and, they were often English!

The meanings and values of words change, particularly in English. To me, f*** once meant ONLY sexual intercourse. But over the last decades it has crept into daily social intercourse (couldn't resist) as a kind of all-purpose expletive. Yet, in the sixties and seventies it was SHOCKING and that's why people used it, make no mistake about that. It was part of the Revolution, man, and if you were hip and with it and cool and not boring and dull and bald like your life-insurance-selling Dad, you said f*** as often as you dared.

I curse with it myself, on occasion. It has a kind of harsh quickness that expresses satisfactorily the hasty rage or fear so common when one is driving a car in traffic.

But I hate to hear it used as every other word. It is not shocking any more, just vulgar. Rather than making the speaker seem sophisticated and worldly (which was once the intent) in my mind it just seems to have gone from boldly coarse to common.

And then, you have the ugly phenomenon of groups of girls about 12 or 13 or 14 years old hunting through the mall, f***ing this and f***ing that, giggling, thinking, "Oh, wow, I bet that old lady over there is shocked, eh?" No, she's not. She's sad. They deserve better of themselves.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm wondering if I should combine this thread with the related portion of the "bad language" thread and separate the grammar portion of that thread into a separate thread. Any objections, Alatar or anyone else?

[Alatar]

I'm not sure. I think this thread speaks to something different than that thread in some ways. Personally I'm against tidying up for tidying ups sake. I chose not to tag this thread onto that one for that reason.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Good enough. I'll leave it alone.

[The Angel]

Interesting thread. I feel, if you'll permit me to stretch a metaphor so far beyond breaking point that it hurts, that in the pallete of language, "vulgar" words are the strong primary colours, the vermillion reds, the midnight blacks, the sudden electric blues, and the like.

Now, anyone who has seen a Monet or a Turner will know that you can have a perfectly wonderful painting without these hues. But, crucially, while you can have their genius, if you deny yourself that coarseness, you deny yourself the power of the Picassos or the Mondrians -- the Deadwoods, the Sex In The Cities, the Quentin Tarantinos and Tom Sharpes. As Alatar says, we limit ourselves. This is a perfectly valid limitation to place upon ourselves, but a limitation nonetheless.

Edit to add: It occurs to me, on further reflection, as regards using non-"vulgar" alternatives to create a similar effect; a symphony of pastel shades will never, can never, have the same effect as a single drop of crimson.

And now I'll stop being pretentious.

[truehobbit]

Maybe some limitation is good?

If we didn't limit ourselves, life would be total chaos. I think all kinds of what we'd consider a 'normal' life, 'organised' in different social contexts, can in this way be seen as a form of limitation.

I'd go so far as to say that without limitation we'd be lost and unable to survive.

So the question just remains what to limit and how much.

[yovargas]

So the question just remains what to limit and how much.

In the arts? Nothing and none.

[truehobbit]

But I was talking about life.

I think.

[Jnyusa]

In the arts? Nothing and none.

Sorry for diving into this discussion without having read the whole thread, but does anyone recall the furor over the National Academy of the Arts support for the Maplethorpe showing about a decade ago?

There was a vocal group within the public who complained that this was kiddie porn and not art and should never have received public funding.

Context seems to be everything in art. Like Angel says, there is some artistic work that would be gutted by the removal of its vulgarity. But how is it that we arrive at a conclusion whether vulgarity is gratuitious or integral to the artistic purpose of the work?

I think that Hobby's pointing to limits is quite relevant because art relies upon discipline. Not just anything thrown onto paper or screen is art. The pieces that have artistic value do not so much sit on top of a context as they succeed to create a context for the viewer within which the purpose of the artist can be understood and related back to the viewer's world. This requires a kind of philosophical discipline in observation and then technical discipline in creation.

Jn

[Alatar]

We're not saying all Art should be vulgar, or that all vulgarity is Art. We're simply saying that vulgarity can be used effectively in art, whether that is the use of strident colours in a Picasso or the use of F*** in Deadwood.

And yes, I do consider Deadwood to be art, before anyone asks.

There is no question that vulgarity can simply be vulgar. The point some of us are trying to make is that it need not always be so. Its possible for vulgarity to resonate at the highest level. Dickens would not have lost his value if his characters swore. Shakespeare certainly didn't.

[Primula Baggins]

Dickens would not have lost his value if his characters swore.

No, but he wouldn't have sold nearly as many books.

It's a matter of context. I don't think something as raw as Deadwood could have succeeded as public art in Dickens' time (there were people with private collections, though). However, Deadwood is a success now.

I completely agree that vulgarity is just another tool that can be used to create good art. Some may not be able to enjoy the result, but that doesn't mean it isn't art.

[sh_wulff]

words shift with time

for example "wog" meaning some-eone of non anglo-celtic background in Australia was considered quite derogatory 30 years ago

but I have adopted it.. with pride.. as in woggy parking, wog-foods and wog-chick

turning that word into a badge of honour does not diminish me, it diminishes the negative power of that word

i refuse to use ethnic in that context... because I feel that I am Australian.. just a more colourful one

I have found, too that in hip-hop african -americans are adopting the "n" word with pride

that is de-clawing and defanging that word

it makes me add that in english every word denoting a powerful woman in middle english had been transformed into something with negative connotations.. so I proudly call myself a crone, spinster and hag

there is also the introduction of french based words with the Norman invasion. being the language of the nobility, the older english/ anglo-saxon words became vulgar (of the people.. using the original latin meaning) and hence disdained

but a word is a word... we give power to those words .. whether to shock or degrade. or we can refuse to let a word have a negative impact on us

anyways my $0.02 worth

and yes not using certain words is limiting one's vocabulary.. there is no argument against that, but wheteher it is wise to or not is a different argument

edit spelling and not minding my P's and Q's

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

It's a matter of context. I don't think something as raw as Deadwood could have succeeded as public art in Dickens' time (there were people with private collections, though). However, Deadwood is a success now.

But it has already been established earlier in the thread that there were copious works in the tradition of frontier humor (for example) that sold quite well. These works were contemporary with Dickens and frequently used such language, or its contemporary equivalent.

Even something like "Huckleberry Finn" (which is in the tradition that I am referring to) uses strong language, with the N word being used, for example, to powerful effect. And I don't think that anyone would say that "Huckleberry Finn" was not public, not popular, or not highly regarded.

I think that the view that such art did not exist is primarily due to a whitewashing of popular culture by well-meaning people in the academic profession.

People still try to get "Huckleberry Finn" banned on a regular basis.

BrianIs AtYou

[vison]

Mark Twain used the "n" word because that's the word a kid like Huck would use.

For no other reason. Huck understood that Jim was a human being, he used that word because that was the word he used.