Linguistics Discussion 2013 and Beyond discussion

Hope this is the best folder for the topic--couldn't pick just the right one!

I see no one's really mentioned profanity as far as I can tell. What do you guys think about profanity? Generally talk about what you think about why people use it, when, which countries use which kind of words, your personal opinion on it, etc.

My own biggest observation (though I haven't done any extensive research on the topic) is that the amount of profanity used among my friends seems to vary a little according to culture/ethnicity. My Canadian and Australian friends rarely, if ever, swear. My American friends, by contrast, swear quite a bit. My European friends seem to be somewhere in the middle. And so on. Of course there are exceptions, and I don't mean to generalize more than I need to here.

The weirdest thing is that when we talk about profanity in the US in linguistics classes we think that the US is really tame compared to us. I personally hardly swear as I follow the Franz Kafka idea that: "Swearing destroys man's greatest creation - language. It is an insult to the soul and a murderous offence against grace. But so is any use of words without proper consideration. For to speak implies to consider and define. Words involve a decision between life and death."

We have one US student in our linguistics class and she says that we are very much more open in our society with certain things. Like how we show adds for funeral homes and 'adult' scenes around 9pm on television stations. She also says that she hears and sees a lot more swearing than in the states, so maybe it's a perception thing?

In Australia I hear a lot of swearing. You go to a cricket or any sporting club and swearing is almost socially accepted as a thing, particularly swearing with sexual references. Yet we don't really treat 'crap', 'damn' or 'bloody' as 'real' swear words in our culture. It's all very odd...

Jonathan wrote: "The weirdest thing is that when we talk about profanity in the US in linguistics classes we think that the US is really tame compared to us. I personally hardly swear as I follow the Franz Kafka id..."

So you've tricked me into thinking that all Australians are ultra-civilized prudes!

Americans swear a lot too, though we tend to wave wildly back and forth between gasping in astonishment when someone swears (or makes sexual references) and nonchalantly tossing around words. Could depend on which demographic you're referring to, though.

How about Canadians? Do you know anything about their habits?

I don't know about Canadians. Hey prude and ultra civilised are different things. I'm ultra-civilised!

In Australia most swearing is a nonchalant thrown around word. We tend to be very laid back people which is why you probably know our accents from the laid back Crocodile Dundee/ Steve Irwin drawl as Kyle said.

What about the distinction between profanity and obscenity? Some people are more sensitive to one than the other.

Even lumping them together, the difference in relative offensiveness of particular words in different English-speaking countries still catches me out. (Either that, or my Aussie friends are lying when they tell me certain terms are "affectionate" down under!)

Nope certain words are quite affectionate down here. Like 'bastard' for instance, to use one of the 'lesser' words.