7 words

George Carlin’s 7 deadly words - transcript of his monologue. This is sort of wandering.

I tried to think of what they were, and could only come up with 3. I asked Mr.Gopher and he came up with the same 3. (definitely not allowed to hog the dictionary for Quiddler, honey!)
Fuck, Cunt, Shit, Piss, Motherfucker, Cocksucker and Tits.

The FCC stated that it would address the legality of broadcast language on a case-by-case basis. Depending on the context presented, use of the “F-Word” [fuck] or other words as highly offensive as the “F-Word” [fuck] may be both indecent and profane, if aired between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.

and then there's: highly offensive vs. indecent vs. obscene vs. just-a-little-offensive??

FCC rule bout what is okay
#3. whether the material appears to pander or is used to titillate or shock. No single factor is determinative. The FCC weighs and balances these factors because each case presents its own mix of these, and possibly other, factors.

And they apparently think it’s okay for Fox-TV to have a bunch of sex fetishists running around dressed up in horse-bondage paraphernalia on a TV show at 7 p.m. ...??? What the hell else is that, if not intentional titillation (does that count as “tit”?) or shocking? I was pretty shocked. Admittedly, I was shocked because of the time of day and the fact it was on regular TV. After 10 p.m. would have surprised me that it was on regular TV, but it wouldn't have enraged me.

How many shows are there with a message “some content may be unacceptable to children” at 7 or 8 p.m. (because "local time" here = EST not CST) where there’s . Fine, if you need to put it there to make some righteous idiot turn off the TV to avoid seeing some woman’s cleavage = the one in front, ‘cause if you ever watch the beginning of CSI:Miami, you sure as hell have seen the one in the back with no warning notice. And that's not titillating? [well, I don't think it is, but I'm also not the target audience for them] Except, I've never seen that warning with sex, only with blood/guts/gore.

This came up with discussion about regulating cable more. Strange bedfellows, with some fearing any increase in the Fed's ability to regulate anything vaguely involving the 1st amendment on the same side as those arguing that "free market" forces means letting the customer pick which cable channels she wants, rather than be forced to buy bundled channels.

I would be very, very leery of any additional regulation given to the FCC over cable companies. They already bend & spread 'em to the wimpy wimpy wimpy whiners over those 7 words. Have you seen movies where the "offensive" language was cut/re-dubbed? It's like the Daily Show - any idiot with a 1/2 baked brain knows perfectly well what they're saying during those little bleeps. Watch Battlestar Galactica (the new one, obviously) - the F-word is 'frak'. I can't figure if it is to avoid some FCC/idiot problem [yes!] or if it is simply an effort to make something familiar yet different. Because it is patently obvious what the script writers mean.

Then Jr.Gopher#2 yesterday exclaimed "darn it!"
hmmm... I'm confronted by where to draw the line about what's acceptable abrupt language. Is Sheiße okay? 'Cause Mr.Gopher uses it, but doesn't like me to say shit. In our house, being in a foreign language doesn't excuse it from acceptability. However, what happens when a word isn't as offensive in German as it is in English?

Back to Carlin ... tits? That's banned?? Well, shit. What cocksucker thought that was obscene, but 'boobs' isn't? Does fucktard become a banned word? How about infixes? (As opposed to suffixes or prefixes, an infix is inserting the extra part into the middle of the word, e.g. holy fucking cow, whoopty-fucking-do, et fucking cetera).

I'll go back to science, and the Boltzmann distrifuckingbution.
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