OFF: the truth is out there

[Ted Jackson jr. 6L6]

> From:          J Strobridge <eset08 at HOLYROOD.ED.AC.UK>

> Carl E. Anderson writes:
>
> > On m_n 1 dec 1997 18.34 +0000 "Ted Jackson jr. 6L6" <tojackso at LIBRARY.SYR.ED
U> wrote:
> > > I think that society has simply gotten used to more foul language.
> > > Blame WWII.  The word 'fuck' was virtually unknown before the war,
> > > but got learned by all the draftees who dutifully brought it into
> > > society in general...
> >
> >      Profanity comes and goes (so to speak).  "Fuck" is not exactly a
> > new word.  Indeed most of the common "swear words" are of old and

Never said it was.  But it was relatively unknown throughout society
til after the war.  I was suggesting that because so many men who
would otherwise not have been exposed to wholesale profanity, were,
through military service in the war, that they then brought a lot of
profanity back to the 'real' world with them when they left the
service.  That, and the horrors of war worked together to make a lot
of people less sensitive to profanity...

> > distinguished lineage.  For example, the vulgar vernacular word
> > denoting "posterior" can be traced to a proto-Indo-European root
> > "ors-", perhaps 6000 years old, meaning "arse".
> >
> >      You want some real earthiness in the "recent" past (for English-
> > speakers), head for the Elizabethan period  :)
> >
>
> Profanity, so my understanding goes, is explicit use of something
> considered socially unacceptable by that particular society.  So in a
> future world where, say, use of gene manipulation was socially required
> to produce medically perfect children then to call someone a "bleeder"
> meaning a haemophiliac would be considered the worst possible profanity.
>
> Profanity even differs among cultures today.   You can grossly insult
> someone from another country by actions or words considered quite normal
> here!
>
Sure!  And don't forget body language.  There are gestures deemed
obscene in other cultures that Americans perform all the time, and
vice versa...


>


theo
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