So basically you're saying that if you were my boss, and I was... say.. your receptionist... and someone came in for a meeting and asked if you were busy, and I said: "**** off, you're not ****ing welcome here, suck my **** and kill yourself you crazy psychotic ****"

You'd be okay with that, and I wouldn't get fired?! No linguistic censorship, afterall.

 

Or... if I said things like "gay ***" and typd lik dis bcuz i m lzy n stpd u wldnt care or think any less of me?

 

Bingo, there are geniuses with very poor english skills but they generally have to be damn good at what they do to be respected. If you win a Nobel prize, then you can write and speak however you want but all you can do is claim to be intelligent while at the same time spelling the as "teh" or know as "no", it doesn't really come off as believable.

 

Coming from someone who's location is "****" minus the comma, I'm not sure how much weight your argument carries...

You're missing the point...I was stating that I don't agree with what is considered wrong when there are so many synonomous words that are allowed. Why does one arrangement of vowels and consonants create a stir, and another arrangement of vowels and consonants that means the same thing go unnoticed. And what constitutes "profanity" was determined long before we got here...how is that fair? Just because you were conceived before me shouldn't give you the right to govern my speech based on what you found offensive.

Maybe if we "devalued" these "profane" slang words by incorporating them into our standard, they wouldn't be so appealing to be used by those of us who wish to make an impression by using them...or at least maybe those of us who are offended would come to accept them as part of our evolving writtne and verbal communication.

Your workplace analogy doesn't work either because, if someone was employed to perform a service and behaved in a manner contrary to that service, then, yes, they would be reprimanded accordingly regardless of what words fit into the **** portions of your example.

As I previously stated, I don't hold EvoM responsible for what has become "acceptable" by today's standards...this was decided long before any of us were born (probably)...If the rest of us could simply let go of what we deem "profane" simply because it's a word that we learned to be profane, maybe this wouldn't be such an issue in society...

 

There are some words that are simply considered profanities, it's that simple. There are some words that are considered racist, it's the same fundamental issue. You can either complain about them and try to "take them back", or you can accept that some words have particular strength and leave it at that. I agree with you to an extent, I don't find many supposedly offensive words offensive but some people do thus I don't use them.
You contradict yourself on the workplace thing, if words are more or less arbitrary (ie. it doesn't matter if you say fecal matter or if you say ****, the meaning is the same), why would some words be associated with a certain level of service?

 

Not really...if my "receptionist" told someone who came in for a meeting to "go fly a kite" or "take a long walk off a short pier", they are not being "receptive" as an administrative assistant or "receptionist" is employed to do. It has nothing to do with profanity or vernacular or anything of the sort...it has to do with the fact that they are not acting in a prescribed manner within their employ.

To reiterate, I'm not saying that every word is appropriate for every situation...that's why there are different words that make up a language. I'm just saying that if we didn't expend so much energy to stress that fecal matter and **** are different, maybe they woudn't be...

 

What if they said "would you take a ****ing seat please?" in a very nice tone or "oh yes sir, I'll write you down for another ****ing meeting on Tuesday, how does that **** sound?"? I know I'd fire them on the spot.

 

What if the client was of the open minded sort, and came to you and said "I appreciate your receptionist's candor...it's refreshing to see someone break the mold. I was under the impression that your firm was yet another stuffy, cookie-cutter, cold, corporate coffin...but I can see that's not the case and I look forward to doing business with you." Do they still get fired?

As an example of words that get censored because of "guilt by association", take this example:

I went to my friend's farm to see the **** that he'd been bragging about. When I got there, I was sincerely shocked by the size of his ****. I'd brought my **** along because I was sure mine was bigger than his, but I was wrong. My pathetic **** was embarrassingly small when compared to my friends ****. I'll never show my **** to anyone again unless I'm positive my **** is bigger.

In this case **** is c_o_c_k. Rooster would be fine, but c_o_c_k is blocked, even though it's the same context.

 

And how likely is that? Moreover, nobody is going to get offended if you don't use profanity, but people can if you do use profanity.

 

So, basically here is what has happened;


The OP sought clarification on what is meant by 'profanity'. It was explained, howerver the OP sought further clarification to the point that s/he has run amok of said profanity filter and the question has been answered satisfactorily for anyone of average intelligence to understand. Said OP continues to persist in demaniding clarification to the point of losing all meaning.

For the purposes of this post;

"Average Intellingence" refers to an individual with intellectual understanding deemed to be common, or average.

/Thread

 

I agree...but why is it more the responsibility of the "profaner" than the "profanee"? Why do we get offended at such things? Why do we care enough about someone's choice of words to call them out on it or to allow it to be an affront to our sensibilities?

Why can't we as a society nullify the effect of the words by just letting them be what they are...words?

I hope I'm not making enemies here...I'm just suggesting that EvoM is basing their functionality on "values" that were created "for us" by our predecesors, and not "with us"...I'm not suggesting that EvoM should change its stance on what is considered profane, I just wish that our society would have gotten past this long ago and it was no longer an issue...

 

Because some words are socially defined or construed as being offensive, it's really that simple. It's no different than why we don't want people to wear ***** flags around town, it's a matter of public decency.
Words are not simply words, go tell a jewish or african american person over the age of 70 that.

 

You continue to miss the point. I understand that a receptionist would be fired for not doing their job, because you are the employer you can make that decision.

Because the mods/admins are the "employers" of all the members "employees" of a private site "company" they can do whatever they want as well.

And back to Amby's example of someone saying "would you take a ****ing seat please?" in a very nice tone or "oh yes sir, I'll write you down for another ****ing meeting on Tuesday, how does that **** sound?" And your response was basically: what if the client then came in and was impressed, would Amby still fire the employee? What if the client LEFT because they weren't impressed, would YOU still fire them? They didn't do their job, but they weren't being condescending at all, they were just expressing themselves in the way they feel is appropriate.

 

If you're at your friend's house, you can say whatever the hell you want. However, would you go to a church and use profanity left and right? I would certainly hope not.

 

Yes.

Listen guys, I know there are other forums that let you say whatever you want to, however you want to. I'm actually a member of some. EvoM tries to set itself apart from some other forums by asking that our members use not only respectful speech, but respect the views and opinions of others. I personally would not like it if the F-bomb was dropped in every other post, and I'm sure most of you would not either. We can debate the merits of "free speech" back and forth, but the fact of the matter is that we have decided that we would not like profanity here, and since it is our "house" (read here: privately owned website), we ask that everybody respect that rule. Most of our 100,000+ members do, and we appreciate it.
Now, as far as clarification of what is a profanity, I cannot explain it any better than it has been, complete with links and references. Our rules are pretty clear about this, they're linked at the top of every forum, in "Announcements", and even in my sig. My personal suggestion would be: if you're in doubt as to the use or context of the words in your post, sit on it for a bit and don't post. Re-read it and if it still seems questionable, you should probably think of another way of saying whatever it is you were going to say. We usually try to give warnings for folks using words and phrases not in accordance with our rules, and only resort to points or temp bans if it's clear the member doesn't want to respect our rules. Hope this explains our position clearly.

J.D. - Admin