From: utzoo!decvax!duke!unc!tim
Newsgroups: net.flame
Title: Re: watch your language
Article-I.D.: unc.4764
Posted: Sun Mar 13 14:28:22 1983
Received: Mon Mar 14 02:15:18 1983
References: ihuxn.225


    What is it about people that causes them to identify words as
"foul"? I suggest that it is childishness. They snickered these
words as babes, evading the wrath of adults.  Finally, when they
became adults themselves , they did not bother to throw off their
juvenile attitudes towards these words. Instead, in their rush to
throw off all they felt was childish, they abandoned, not the
immature attitudes, but the manifestations.

    Words are not dirty, intents are dirty. "Clean" language is
no more an indicator of clean intent than "dirty" language is
evidence of dirty intent. The crusaders against language that
they perceive as foul are merely imitating their parents and
teachers. The true obscenities are in such statements as
"when something is that controversial -- I know it must be wrong"
and other idiocies that we see daily, not in the casual use of
four-letter words.

    I repeat my exhortation to the crusaders: Grow up!

						Tim Maroney
						duke!unc!tim