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Hello!
In lugnet.admin.general, Nathan Wells wrote:
> LUGNET has admins? I haven't ever seen evidence of that...I seem to remember
> a particular thread that had the F word in it over twenty times and it was
> never edited or deleted. 'The friendliest place on the Internet', eh?
The issue is not the F-word itself in my as always more than humble opinion. It
is just one syllable composed of three phonemes (the sounds /f/, /A/ and /k/)
when you speak it out loud, using four graphemes (the letters 'f', 'u', 'c' and
'k') when you write it. This combination of phonemes is used as a swearword in
English as well as in many other languages, due to cultural interchange.
There are, however, languages in which this combination of letters and/or this
combination of phonemes does not denote a swearword. Many of you may have seen
the half-famous picture of the town sign of the Austrian village Fucking that's
circulating through the world wide web. Well, whenever the syllable [fAk] is
used in English-langage context it's clear then that the cuss is meant.
Everybody knows the word, many people use the word occasionally, including kids.
As sad as that is, but it means you don't tell them anything new when using it
in the internet because kids that are old enough to browse the internet have
learned this word long before. When you are reading it it is not YOU who is
obliged to blush in shame, in fact it's the person who used a cuss who should be
ashamed. So it doesn't help much when any admin deletes or masks such a word. Of
course everybody shall restrict him/hersellf to use as pure language as possible
avoiding cuss words for it should not be made the impression to anyone
(including kids) that using swearwords is a proper thing to do nor that using
them is ordinary or even sanctified.
On the other hand, when a cuss is used it simply means the cuss was used. It
pictures the reality that is: people are using cuss words. Deleting a cuss from
an internet forum doesn't change the reality but only the picture of the
reality. It doesn't change the mind of the person who used the cuss nor this
person's attitide towards the person who was called names or towards the issue
that caused the use of a swearword. Least of all does deleting the cuss word
change the issue that caused the use of a cuss, while, of course, the use of a
cuss does not change anything, either. Deleting a cuss is like sweeping away the
shards but it doesn't repair the pane.
But the main issue is actually not the swearword itself (the combination of
sounds/letters) that's spoken out loud/written down but rather the fact that
somebody felt the need to use it, no matter if he effectively says/writes the
word. It's not the word "asshole" that bothers me and that makes Lugnet a less
friendly place on earth but the fact that several people in the respective
thread (oops, still in THIS thread) felt the urge to call somebody an asshole
even if only one person actually was bold enough to write it down. That's the
sad thing. And in my (as always more than....) opinion calling somebody names is
not at all sanctified by the desire to blame the name-called person for having
blamed or offended a third person regardless of the entitlement the "asshole"
might or might not have had to attack the third person. If it was an attack at
all.
Bye
Jojo
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Ten cheers for Jake
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| (...) LUGNET has admins? I haven't ever seen evidence of that...I seem to remember a particular thread that had the F word in it over twenty times and it was never edited or deleted. 'The friendliest place on the Internet', eh? (20 years ago, 20-Nov-04, to lugnet.admin.general, FTX)
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