This explains a good deal:
Incensed by what it sees as a virtual pandemic of verbal vulgarity issuing from the diverse likes of Howard Stern, Bono of U2 and Robert Novak, the United States Senate is poised to consider a bill that would sharply increase the penalty for obscenity on the air.
By raising the fines that would be levied against offending broadcasters some fifteenfold, to a fee of about $500,000 per crudity broadcast, and by threatening to revoke the licenses of repeat polluters, the Senate seeks to return to the public square the gentler tenor of yesteryear, when seldom were heard any scurrilous words, and famous guys were not foul mouthed all day.
Yet researchers who study the evolution of language and the psychology of swearing say that they have no idea what mystic model of linguistic gentility the critics might have in mind. Cursing, they say, is a human universal. Every language, dialect or patois ever studied, living or dead, spoken by millions or by a small tribe, turns out to have its share of forbidden speech, some variant on comedian George Carlin’s famous list of the seven dirty words that are not supposed to be uttered on radio or television.
Young children will memorize the illicit inventory long before they can grasp its sense, said John McWhorter, a scholar of linguistics at the Manhattan Institute and the author of “The Power of Babel,” and literary giants have always constructed their art on its spine.
Read the whole f–king thing.
gratefulcub
fucking hilarious
Defense Guy
Fuck them. What a bunch of uptight fuckheads.
FUCK!!!!!!!!!
It’s like the alcoholic blaming the presence of liqour stores for his addiction. I know it’s shocking, but kids can learn when curse words are appropriate for use and when they are not. It does take parental teaching, but it can be done.
TallDave
I guess this means Kos will never have his own TV show.
Tim F
Right, lord knows the party of Dick Cheney would never stoop to unclean language.
slide
glad, with all that is going on, our elected officals know what is truly important.
gratefulcub
Go Fuck Yourself TimF
jill
Wow, now all our problems will be solved! Another good and timely idea from the party of Vice President “Go fuck, yourself” Cheney! Way to have your priorities straight! I guess since all of the other Republican agenda is sunk this is all they have left.
Another Jeff
Why are they even worried about HOward Stern. Isn’t he going to satellite in less than four months?
Tim F
IMO the main curse words mostly convey a lack of vocabulary on the part of the speaker. In my experience you can get a much more pleasing result from tailored phrases like ‘mongoloid,’ ‘mouth-breather’ and ‘unreconstructed dolt.’
gratefulcub
Cable and Satellite are next on the agenda. They just hate Sunday night HBO will all the cursing, sex, and fun.
Of course, the Gov of Cali can kill a few hundred people, and that is good family fun
Krista
I’ve never, ever understood what the big deal is with the obscenity. I don’t have kids, but if I did, I’d much rather them hear the word “fuck”, or see Janet Jackson’s boobie, than see a (VERY) realistic depiction of a rotting corpse on CSI.
Frankly, I think this whole thing has two goals: 1) grab as much cash as they can from the entertainment industry, as most public figures have enough sense not to publicly tell someone to go fuck themselves, and 2) a quick way to appease the “family values” folks, who still won’t accept that things are different now, and that we can’t go back to some mythological, idealized version of the 1950’s.
sean
John, I see this post is listed under “Uncategorized”. I think it is long past time to create a new category : “Congressional Stupidity”
docG
May the gorbellied, fen-sucked ratsbane sponsoring this legislation fail to qualify for a federal retirement! (If you want swearing at its finest, go Elizabethan.)
Mr Furious
What a fucking joke. I especially love that the examples supplied occurred over an eighteen month period. Yeah, it’s out of fucking control!!! and in the case of Bono and Novak, these were unscripted outbursts. Implementation of a delay would sove these problems immediately.
Dick Cheney alone is going to sink CSPAN. Between his comments on the Senate floor and his heckler, we’re talking millions…
I’m with Krista, graphic violence and the fact that there are at least six shows I can think of centered around autopsies or embalming is more disturbing to me, than language.
kenB
Stupid reference to linguistics in that article though — of course the existence of obscenities in languages is universal, but that doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been a real change over the last few decades in this country in terms of where and how often they can be heard.
And I would point out that the less taboo these words are, the less powerful they become. People who drop these words into every other sentence are hard-pressed to find a way to blow off steam when they really need to — their only choices are to increase the volume and frequency of the words, which is kinda sad.
Jim Allen
Bravo reran James Lipton’s interview of Jay Leno on “Inside the Actor’s Studio” this weekend. During the final questions session, when Lipton asked Leno what his favorite curse word was, Leno said he didn’t like the usual obscenities ad they’ve lost their effect, and prefered things like “syphilitic druid”. I imagine ancient British priests with venerial diseases may take offense and try to pass legislation shortly.
Still don’t know why Jay Leno qualifies to be interviewed on “Actor’s Studio”, though, any more than Billy Joel did, but anyway.
Mr Furious
Yeah, they ran out of qualified guests a lonnngg time ago. When’s David Spade going to be on?
KC
I’m glad someone’s watching out for my ears when I watch television. Now, let me get back to my porn, muted of course . . .
Jody Tresidder
Tim F Says:
IMO the main curse words mostly convey a lack of vocabulary on the part of the speaker. In my experience you can get a much more pleasing result from tailored phrases like ‘mongoloid,’ ‘mouth-breather’ and ‘unreconstructed dolt.’
And your preferred “tailored phrases” are supposed to be evidence of a rich vocabulary? Goodness…
TallDave
Oh, so Dick Cheney swears in almost everything he writes? I guess I missed all those.
jobiuspublius
Don’t these bipedal rectums have anything better to do? Oh, they must have finished investigating themselves already. Golly, they’re fast.
Aha! So, it’s all their fault! The cursers are out to intercourse’n deficate on us.
Does this mean that our public discourse would be more clever if we cursed and that penalties for cursing are part of the dumbing down of America?
Aw, John called us fucktards once. How sweet. You see, Americans are friendly mother intercourse’n feces heads.
Angry friendly mother intercourse’n feces heads.
Maybe we should privatize Supper Nanny. Too bad, Safavian is busy.
Sarah the Penguin
My fellow DJ’s and I have one big gripe about this legislation.
They don’t give you a yes and no list of what you can and can’t say on the air.
As it stands right now, you can get fined for a burp.
You can get fined for something that sounds like a fart.
You can get fined for “descriptive language”.
If they wanted, they could charge me $2,500 for saying “It’s a haunting melody” when talking about a song. That’s the way the law is on the books.
Why do they keep increasing the fine?
I can’t pay a $2,500 fine…why did they have to increase it to $500,000? Why would you want to fine someone 25 times their anual salary for saying one word?
Who else gets fined 25 times their anual salary?
Does the NFL fine a linebacker $125 million for making an illegal block?
….gggrrrrrrrrr! don’t get me started on just how STUPID this whole thing is!
jobiuspublius
What I would give to unleash on potty word on the Senate Floor.
Tim F
Exactly. You wouldn’t even have reacted if I simply said ‘asshole.’
JoeTX
We don’t care about illegal wars, torture, not saving the poor of the south from hurricanes, or how much you still from the Treasury, as long as you control abortion,
free speechobsenity, and porn, your doing a fine job Bush! We know your lying to us for our own good, cause we don’t want to be discomforted by the truth.— the Base
ET
Don’t you have a “general stupidity” catagory???
HMMMM If I use the word “frack” instead of f**k (a la Battlestar Galactica) or any other word in place of a cuss word those words then have to be added to the cussword list? Wow – that could get interesting.
ET
Dang (opps)! I should have added a suggestion of names for the agency in the FEC who keeps the list of cusswords up to date.
Krista
I love Battlestar Galactica…it’s frackin’ awesome.
tBone
Yep. And the Senate is full of ruttin’ gorram fools. Writers will just use shiny made-up curses and/or have their characters curse in Chinese.
Defense Guy
Speaking of Firefly, who was the effing moron who took that one off the air? Here’s hoping the movie breathes some life back into that show, if not on Fox, then maybe on SciFi.
ET
Oh look more words for the FEC to be on the look out for so they can add them to the naughty word list:
effing
ruttin’ gorram
RSA
Every language, dialect or patois ever studied, living or dead, spoken by millions or by a small tribe, turns out to have its share of forbidden speech, some variant on comedian George Carlin’s famous list of the seven dirty words that are not supposed to be uttered on radio or television.
From what I’ve read, this is not quite right. English language and culture has tended to focus on George Carlin’s list of scatological terms (i.e. dealing with sex and excrement) as the worst of the worst, but in other languages, the most horrible curses deal with death, and in others, with blasphemy.
Stormy70
Just got the boxed set in, and I am ready to see what the fuss is about.
Stupid FCC.
Com Con
When has the vice president every sworn in public? I know that crazy doctor was swearing at him last week, but what’s that got to do with Cheney swearing himself?
tBone
Ah, another browncoat in the making. You’ll be good and hooked just in time to go see the movie. (Drag your friends to see it too; gotta get some sequels greenlit.)
goonie bird
The best solution to the sewer mouths is a good bar of soap like LEAVER 2000 or IRISH SPRING