OnPoint: On Freedom of Speech
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You know, I think that saying that Paul Henry is a cunt is an entirely respectable product in the marketplace of ideas.
I suspect there's one or two feminists who'd be serving fresh hot "shut the fuck up" pies at their stalls in response to that notion.
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I suspect there's one or two feminists who'd be serving fresh hot "shut the fuck up" pies at their stalls in response to that notion.
If you count certain "internet feminists" in the category , you'd probably find those stalls would be serving more pies than the White Lady 24/7.
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I believe "shut the consensual intercourse up" may be the preferred phrase, actually.
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Well, that was the wording used above.
(And also: I'm willing to call people `shit', `cock', `arsehole' and various other anatomical rude words. I don't think there's much of a reason to treat `cunt' differently from arsehole or cock, and I am rather suspicious of attempts to do so.)
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I suspect there's one or two feminists who'd be serving fresh hot "shut the fuck up" pies at their stalls in response to that notion.
Craig: Despite what you think, sometimes, "cock" just isn't enough.
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But you know, this is one of the few times that I've used "cunt" in prose intended for public consumption.
I usually try to stick to gender-neutral swearing. I love Deadwood, but shy away from using "cocksucker" in general discourse.
Recently, I've started to question the concept of politically correct obscenities. It's trying to be generally and indiscriminately offensive, without being specifically offensive. Kinda "fuck you all, but strictly equally".
Perhaps I've given too much thought to this.
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Cunt like the word fuck has great phonetics.Also Motherfucker just rolls off the tongue like a foreign word.Dick is too friendly.Cocksucker has cock in it, too chickeny.
"You motherfucking cunt", is fighting words , yet it makes no sense and is a historic result of ladyhating.
Yet as stand alone words they release their own energy.
Fuck. -
+1 to Jeremy Eade
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I always find it strange in American film - I've never heard it used of a male*. It clearly has a similar meaning to here, but exclusively for women. I wonder if that's why you also don't hear it often, why it's more taboo there than here.
*Edit: Duh, in case it's not clear - the C word.
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Ask the Outrageous Fortune team, they just got a slap fom the BSA for using the c word last Tuesday. Cheryl was referring to Draska.
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Craig: Despite what you think, sometimes, "cock" just isn't enough.
The answer to bad cock is more cock not less. Hey, don't knock it until you've tried it.
I usually try to stick to gender-neutral swearing. I love Deadwood, but shy away from using "cocksucker" in general discourse.
I blame the malign influence of the PAS Women's XV who can swear to make a sailor blush, but still suggest you still think a little about gendered insults.
Ask the Outrageous Fortune team, they just got a slap fom the BSA for using the c word last Tuesday. Cheryl was referring to Draska.
Really? But even then, I can understand it in the context of the show, even though the c-bomb made me WTF? for a moment. The Wests are are a pretty sweary clan -- but, without wasting a weekend doing a cuss audit on the entire run, I don't remember anyone dropping that.
I always find it strange in American film - I've never heard it used of a male*.
As part of my ongoing mission to corrupt impressionable youth, I'd recommend you see Kick-Ass some time. There's one infamous scene where the c-bomb is most definitely dropped on a room full of men. And by a 13 year-old actress playing an eleven year old girl, to boot. (And what really shocked me is that, apparently, Chloe Moretz did all her own swearing and none of it was ADR'd by an adult in post.)
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There's one infamous scene where the c-bomb is most definitely dropped on a room full of men. And by a 13 year-old actress playing an eleven year old girl, to boot.
Kick-Ass is *trying* to be shocking, though. I think Ben's right that most Americans would be very hesitant to pull it out at all, and see it as a very gender-specific insult. Which would make it more shocking in Kick-Ass to American audiences.
But then, Americans are just weird about swearing. I am having to practice some fairly hefty self-censorship.
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From the grotesque to the ridiculous, then back to the grotesque: I give you Deborah Hill Cone on Paul Henry and freedom of speech:
Citizens in socialist Cuba lose their own judgment of right or wrong because they have grown up in a society where they have been taught to spout lies. A lot of them try to leave. Same here.
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Don't know if this has been previously posted, but this is how you do it:
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Following the typesetting of this article, the New Zealand Herald officially changed its motto to "we'll publish anything, so long as it's within deadline".
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Because it's gender specific in America, I think if you use it on men it carries a different meaning. It's saying they're like nasty women. Which probably drops the overall power of it, emphasizing the "you're a girl/gay" part over "you're really nasty". It could be closer to "bitch".
Here, if you say it of a man, it really emphasizes the "you're nasty" possibly even "you're abusing your power". That's definitely how it's being used re PH in this thread. Now I think about it, over here, I don't hear it pointed at women very often, and when I heard it on OF the other night, it sounded more like the American usage.
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I like "arsehole" because everybody has one but not everybody is one.
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I like "arsehole" because everybody has one . . .
Only those "boring, ugly, serious people" who don't happen to be ostomates.
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I thoroughly enjoyed reading the Wikipedia entry on "Russian mats" for a slightly different take on the history gendered swear words.
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And the C-bomb isn't a new phenomenon either (about 1:36 into the song)...
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Keir: Just in case you were feeling I aimed my comment (re using "cunt" as an insult/description) at you - not so.
It was niggling at me as I read the whole thread: we use sex words to badmouth others (and I include myself in this - may have started out good little pure Miss D, but time has worked some changes:)) so yes, apart from the unfortunates pointed out by Mr Wylie, arsehole owners are pretty universal, so my vote is that the man-of-the-moment-which-seems-to-have-gone-on-forever is definitely one of those!
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Deborah Hill Cone on Paul Henry and freedom of speech
Poor Debs doesn't understand the difference between a conversation and a broadcast (to say nothing of most other matters). Mind you, that has been a long-standing problem with her 'columns'..
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Ask the Outrageous Fortune team, they just got a slap fom the BSA for using the c word last Tuesday. Cheryl was referring to Draska.
That feels like an entirely fair description of Draska, surely?
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Poor Debs doesn't understand the difference between a conversation and a broadcast (to say nothing of most other matters). Mind you, that has been a long-standing problem with her 'columns'..
I have no doubt she'd understand the difference perfectly well if instead it had been Hone Harawira who had been fired from a broadcasting gig for saying something about white motherfuckers.
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Sorry Keith, I arrived late, and I brought no surprises.
Freedom of speech is being free to say what you want without interference; not from the police, not from lynch mobs, not from your neighbours. They don't get to arrest you, strip you of any of your other legal rights, beat you or gag you.
But they will fine you $6750.
Surely you are aware of that axe hanging over your head as you write. Surely you can't fail to miss the glaring reality that numerous lexical combinations warrant dire consequences...in a democracy.
this is precisely why democracies have freedom of speech
A pejorative platitude to lull people who live in democracies into feeling better about the right to publicly criticize your own government and depart from the established propaganda models - In itself a massive stretch of the concept of freedom - in itself counterproductive to the task of preserving freedoms, and certainly detrimental to any attempts to increase the parameters of the ever superlative term 'freedom'.
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