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Re: Saturday morning rant
On 5/5/01 10:30 AM, quoth the brilliant prestokelvo at yahoo_com at
prestokelvo at yahoo_com:
>
>
>I just have this nagging question in my tired little
>brain. Why is it okay for others to make common use
>of words and phrases that they know might be offensive
>to some (F***, God and Jesus tossed around like last
>weeks cabbage, yourmothersac*nt,...) but my using the
>word "gay" one time gets me reprimanded. Don't
>misunderstand me, I will definitely not use that word
>again if it's offensive to some. But will others be
>so careful?
>
>Watching my mouth...
Well, mainly cos most four-letter words are curses, whereas others are
racial/social slurs, meant to denigrate and insult those of a specific
group. A group of which a few folks around here happen to be members. If
you use the word "gay" outside of 40s musical now, you mean someone who's
homosexual-- which doesn't exclude them being quite happy, of course! But
that's a separate matter.
There's a website out there extolling the past glories of the swastika.
While yeah, that's fine and I understand from whence they're coming with
the concept, unless someone can somehow erase its more recent history as
a symbol of genocide, destruction, forced labor, murder, racism,
violence, and all that happy jazz, well, folks are just gonna have to
live with a whole lot of people being kinda...touchy about it.
Knowing what a word, symbol or phrase used to mean doesn't mean you can
use it without the rest of the world attaching to it those things it's
come to mean in general parlance.
And while we're on the subject, "I'm sorry you feel that way" isn't the
same as "I'm sorry for offending you." And I think Jan was seriously
offended. Your being offended by other people's cursing is between you
and them.
I'm aiming for Emily Post, but all I'm channeling is the Washington Post,
Ysoie
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