Thread: Mind Your Language

Originally Posted by VendingMachine

IMPORTANT! Type f*ck (with u, not instead of @@@@ in the first and third links.

Interestingly enough, it's not important. Good programming eh?

www.yourencyclopedia.net/Fuck.html

Fucking great link!
I'm bookmarking that site.

I wonder if the police in Belgorod will let the people they "catch" swearing pay the штраф right away instead of going to the station?

Originally Posted by waxwing

Interestingly enough, it's not important. Good programming eh?

Awsome! I didn't realise it at the time.

Originally Posted by JB

I wonder if the police in Belgorod will let the people they "catch" swearing pay the штраф right away instead of going to the station?

Who would've thought our JB would've gone for so long without making a snide remark or two. How typical. Yes, they will let them pay the штраф on the spot and I don't give a toss about it - and if they also apply their демократизатор to the culprit's kidneys a few times, the better.

Originally Posted by VendingMachine

Oh yeah? Here's a real situation for you - mum and child at a bus stop, right, a gang of youth comes along, right, effing and blinding, Billingsgate fishmongers turning over in their graves - what's the woman supposed to do? According to you she has the only option - go away. And I say that ain't right, Friendy. She came there first, she needs that bus, why should she move? See, in this situation she's actually being forced to listen to foul language. Ahhhh, the little punks want to get on a bus too, don't they? Then they should be good enough to respect the people around them, because they are in a public place or face the music.

The best thing that mother could do in this situation is to start an interesting conversation with her child simply ignoring these swearing young people. Btw, I don’t think that random encounters like that have any significant effect on a child’s using foul language later, it more has to do with the environment the child is in more or less constantly, that is - their relatives, friends, schoolmates and so on. More than that, if those guys talk too loud and in an aggressive tone it’s more likely that the child would develop negative attitude to their behavior. Parents always want to keep their child from a lot of things they think influence him badly (and foul language is certainly not the worst of them) and that's more than understandable but it's the reality that they can't keep him from all those things and no banning will help here.

Applying the same lame kind of logic:
a couple decides to have sex in public - no one's forcing you to watch, you know. Replace "sex" with X and you had better stay indoors!

OK, I replace “sex” with “cars”, for example, I can’t stand seeing cars. I have at least two options:
1) to stay indoors or whenever someone is able to accompany me to go out with a black bandage over my eyes like a blind person.
2) to put up with the fact that I can’t avoid seeing cars and act like a normal person, of course in this case I’ll do my best to reduce my looking at cars to a minimum by trying to fix my view on other objects.
Anyway, that’s the matter of my personal choice only. But if I demand to ban cars it will be quite another story.
Though it seems to me that it really missed me what exactly you were criticizing here, sorry .

Originally Posted by DDT

The question we should be asking is, "What is swearing anyway?".

That’s really a good question. I would like to pay attention to the following aspect. I think we should distinguish a conversation that is full of excessive obscene words and when such words just slip accidentally. Also I think that fining is especially unacceptable without oral warnings being made first and them being ignored.

Originally Posted by Friendy

The best thing that mother could do in this situation is to start an interesting conversation with her child simply ignoring these swearing young people....More than that, if those guys talk too loud and in an aggressive tone it’s more likely that the child would develop negative attitude to their behavior.

That's utter nonsence. My parents tell me that I was always mesmerised by people swearing in front of me - I'd cling onto their every word for it sounded like some weird foreign language to me and I'd be mesmerised and enchanted by it and then I'd practice my newly acquired linguistic skills at the top of my voice. Obvioulsy, Friendy, you've never been around children, you don't know what they're like and how they'd behave in such situations.

Btw, I don’t think that random encounters like that have any significant effect on a child’s using foul language later, it more has to do with the environment the child is in more or less constantly, that is - their relatives, friends, schoolmates and so on.

That's beside the point. Why on earth should the mother and her child be subjected to that kind of verbal abuse at that particular point in time? I'm not talking about the long term effects and all that BS, they have a right not to be abused in that particular situation.

Parents always want to keep their child from a lot of things they think influence him badly (and foul language is certainly not the worst of them) and that's more than understandable but it's the reality that they can't keep him from all those things and no banning will help here.

Sure, that's not the worst that can happen to them - they might also get raped and even killed in a horrible way, so what? I don't see how the possibility of a more horrible thing happening to them deprives them of their right to be protected from that kind of abuse at that particular point in their lives?

Though it seems to me that it really missed me what exactly you were criticizing here, sorry .

I was just demonstrating how an idiotic argument can be built if one just blindly follows the rules of formal logic with no negative feedback with regard to our way of life and our society's values. Excellent excercise in sophistry, Friendy - too bad our law makers engage themselves in similar activities most of the time. Don't make them your models.

P.S. You live in a society, Friendy, and if the majority of its members find verbal abuse an offence then an offence it is. End of story.

Friendy, imagine someone's been mugged, right, and the copper tells the poor berk to look on the bright side and that he should've tried to take his mind off it while he was being mugged by thinking about the latest cricket scores, etc. Does the fact that the victim had a multitude of ways to take his mind off what was happening to him at the time make what happened to him less of a crime???

This kind of law is not for protecting the public because it is impossible to enforce. How can anyone stop swearing among the thousands of people in public places? And what about swearing in different languages? This law is only good for padding a few cops pockets.

Originally Posted by JB

This kind of law is not for protecting the public because it is impossible to enforce. How can anyone stop swearing among the thousands of people in public places? And what about swearing in different languages? This law is only good for padding a few cops pockets.

I've just spoken to someone from Belgorod - it's actually working, the foulmouthed are getting their just comeuppence. Of course this is a tough law to inforce but so are most laws. Think about murder laws and how many people get killed every minute. As for swearing in different languages - this is not an issue for Belgorod. I don't care if the coppers line their own pockets in this case - it is time the verbal abusers were punished. Hell, I don't care even if they feed the offenders a coupla knuckle sandwiches when they catch them. Honest citizens are sick and tired of this softly softly approach to lawmaking. Whatever happend to the short sharp shock? If the wee buggers think they live in a pigsty it's only right they should be treated as pigs. As the old bill's adage goes if you do the crime you do the time.

According to my observation, most working class people are against wanton use of profanity, it's the wee undergraduate twats and other 'intellectuals' who indulge in it. In other words the salt of the earth is very much in favour of this wonderful law.

Originally Posted by луговой лютик

Originally Posted by VendingMachine

Freedom and democracy doesn't mean freedom to abuse other citizens in public places by forcing them to listen to profanity.

Totaly agree with VM . If you want to swear choose the appropriate company then. Nowdays it's difficult to be with a kid in public (i mean in Russia).Wherever u drop in for a bite in the city u'll hear ppl swearing and think of earplugs for a kid.

The way this thread has gone it is about whether swearing is okay in public or not. That's not my point. I do indeed find it mildly offensive and very offensive if kids are around. Do I think people should swear in public place? No, absolutely not. Do I think there should be a law against it? No, absolutely not.

My problem with this kind of law is twofold:

(1) This is invariably the kind of rule that gets "selectively" enforced. "Undesireables" in socieity (be that racial, religious, or whatever) are often on the receiving end of these kind of "public moral" laws in a disproportionate amount.

(2) Unless you are really clear in the ordinance/rule about prohibited words, it becomes very difficult to decide where its application begins and ends. This is particularly a problem with the speech gets mixed with political expression in a public context. This is particularly problematic if the defined prohibited speech is loosely defined as "offensive" speech.

The Upshot can be illustrated by (cliched) examples:

I disagree with the use of swearing in public and am a Kerry supporter, but I like living in a country where a guy wearing a "F**K Kerry" t-shirt has no fear of being arrested . . .

I may hate the guy with the "Fags will burn in Hell" banner but I'll happily support his right to wave it.

You get the point.

Originally Posted by VendingMachine

According to my observation, most working class people are against wanton use of profanity, it's the wee undergraduate twats and other 'intellectuals' who indulge in it. In other words the salt of the earth is very much in favour of this wonderful law.

I'm guessing you have not spent much time in English pubs.

I wonder if those "working class salt of the earth" folks are going to try and ban all the provocative pictures of naked women in the newspapers, magazines and advertisements all over Russia? "Bad" words on t-shirts, signs, lamp posts? Or maybe they'll ban watching MTV, foreign movies and late night channel 14 in Moscow?(LOTS of bad words there, plus porno) Until every bit of socially unacceptable speech and material is wiped off the face of the earth, the mothers of the world are just going to have to lock their kids in a closet.

Originally Posted by TexasMark

Originally Posted by VendingMachine

According to my observation, most working class people are against wanton use of profanity, it's the wee undergraduate twats and other 'intellectuals' who indulge in it. In other words the salt of the earth is very much in favour of this wonderful law.

I'm guessing you have not spent much time in English pubs.

For crying out loud, we're talking about Russia here, not Blighty. We're talking about the attitudes of Russian people towards swearing in Russian, not English or German or Swahili. When will you get this through your skulls?

Originally Posted by JB

I wonder if those "working class salt of the earth" folks are going to try and ban all the provocative pictures of naked women in the newspapers, magazines and advertisements all over Russia? "Bad" words on t-shirts, signs, lamp posts?

And I would back them 100%.

Or maybe they'll ban watching MTV, foreign movies and late night channel 14 in Moscow?(LOTS of bad words there, plus porno) Until every bit of socially unacceptable speech and material is wiped off the face of the earth, the mothers of the world are just going to have to lock their kids in a closet.

We're talking about the right of people not to be subjected to verbal abuse. I have nothing against people swearing but not in front of me or anyone else who might object. The majority of the people think they have a right not to be exposed to that kind of abuse. You wanna swear, fine, swear till you're blue in the face for ought I care but out of my earshot. It's the same story as with smoking in public places - it's the smoker's duty to make sure the smoke from his cigarette doesn't disturb those around him, not the other way round - if they wish to smoke, fine, go somewhere private and pump yourselves fulla nicotine but don't go telling us that the people around you lot should seek shelter from your fumes. The same goes for swearing - on the telly there's a thing called the watershed - give me a watershed at a bus stop!

P.S. Need I remind you, that as a foreigner you have no say in this matter?

Originally Posted by TexasMark

(2) Unless you are really clear in the ordinance/rule about prohibited words, it becomes very difficult to decide where its application begins and ends.

First of all may I remind you that we're talking about Russian here. You may not know this, not being a native speaker of Russian, so I will tell you - the thing is that in Russian there's a clear definition of which words and derivatives are considered profanity by the majority of native speakers. The law being inforced in Belgorod is exactly about those words and their derivates. Other words, albeit used for swearing, are not considered offensive. Actually, there has always been a law in Russia against the use of those particular words in public places and my parents tell me that in extreme cases the offender could even be given community service. So we're practically talking about a revival of a good old tradition.

Originally Posted by VendingMachine

Originally Posted by Friendy

The best thing that mother could do in this situation is to start an interesting conversation with her child simply ignoring these swearing young people....More than that, if those guys talk too loud and in an aggressive tone it’s more likely that the child would develop negative attitude to their behavior.

That's utter nonsence. My parents tell me that I was always mesmerised by people swearing in front of me - I'd cling onto their every word for it sounded like some weird foreign language to me and I'd be mesmerised and enchanted by it and then I'd practice my newly acquired linguistic skills at the top of my voice.

First of all I didn’t say that all children would necessarily behave like that (I was using rather careful terms in my statement). Also it’s hard to determine now how aggressive were the guys you are talking about. I know that the children are intrigued by unknown words but I also know that they are afraid of aggressiveness (I certainly was), remember how some parents scare their children with "страшные дяди" (будешь плохо себя вести страшный дядя заберёт ).

Obvioulsy, Friendy, you've never been around children, you don't know what they're like and how they'd behave in such situations.

Just for the record, I’ve been enough around children, read enough about children and I also remember my own childhood quite well.

Why on earth should the mother and her child be subjected to that kind of verbal abuse at that particular point in time? I'm not talking about the long term effects and all that BS, they have a right not to be abused in that particular situation.

So if I got you right, your main argument is “abusing at that particular moment”. I think that calling it abusing is very arguable. Here is the definition of "verbal abuse" that I found in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuse (sorry I didn't find a better source (something like a law dictionary) if you or someone else finds one I'll be very grateful)

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Verbal abuse: the use of foul language, obscenities or demeaning talk directed at another.

(underlining is mine)

By that definition when you hear "mat" but it's not directed at you it's not the verbal abuse. You may call it abuse if by abuse you mean anything that brings you some discomfort but that's too subjective to be used as a legal ground for anything. And why on earth should people be subjected to the abuse of their human rights by being fined because of the words they use in their private conversation?

[quote:2ks5m0pd]Parents always want to keep their child from a lot of things they think influence him badly (and foul language is certainly not the worst of them) and that's more than understandable but it's the reality that they can't keep him from all those things and no banning will help here.

Sure, that's not the worst that can happen to them - they might also get raped and even killed in a horrible way, so what? I don't see how the possibility of a more horrible thing happening to them deprives them of their right to be protected from that kind of abuse at that particular point in their lives?[/quote:2ks5m0pd]
That wasn’t my point at all. I was just saying that banning isn’t the way to keep your child from bad influence.

[quote:2ks5m0pd]Though it seems to me that it really missed me what exactly you were criticizing here, sorry .

I was just demonstrating how an idiotic argument can be built if one just blindly follows the rules of formal logic with no negative feedback with regard to our way of life and our society's values. [/quote:2ks5m0pd]
Though in general I agree that the pure formal logic without any regard to the society isn’t always applicable, whether it's applicable or not should be considered in each particular situation and with regard what point one is trying to make. In our case I do think that my logic was justified. My point was that just because people find something offensive it doesn't justify banning those things. However that doesn't mean that banning can't be justified at all.

Originally Posted by VendingMachine

Friendy, imagine someone's been mugged, right, and the copper tells the poor berk to look on the bright side and that he should've tried to take his mind off it while he was being mugged by thinking about the latest cricket scores, etc. Does the fact that the victim had a multitude of ways to take his mind off what was happening to him at the time make what happened to him less of a crime???

If you are referring to my saying that mother should start a conversation than the analogy is false here. When you are mugged your property is taken away from you and talking about the latest cricket scores or anything doesn’t change the situation. The reason why the verbal abuse (let's admit it may be called that way) exists is only because of it's evoking a response in your mind (for example, if you are deaf, you couldn't care less if people next to you are swearing or not because you simply won't know about it) so if you occupy your mind with something else it directly reduces (up to disappearing) the substance of the verbal abuse.

Originally Posted by TexasMark

The way this thread has gone it is about whether swearing is okay in public or not.

Strange. I didn't get that impression. I don't think that anybody in this thread was saying that swearing in public is OK. Personally, I was just trying to illustrate that the justifications for banning the foul language are very doubtful.

Originally Posted by Friendy

So if I got you right, your main argument is “abusing at that particular moment”. I think that calling it abusing is very arguable. Here is the definition of "verbal abuse" that I found in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuse (sorry I didn't find a better source (something like a law dictionary) if you or someone else finds one I'll be very grateful)

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Verbal abuse: the use of foul language, obscenities or demeaning talk directed at another.

(underlining is mine)
By that definition when you hear "mat" but it's not directed at you it's not the verbal abuse. You may call it abuse if by abuse you mean anything that brings you some discomfort but that's too subjective to be used as a legal ground for anything.

It's legal grounds enough - there are laws which deal with this sort of thing already - in fact, they have always existed but have rarely been properly enforced - there's a lot of legal ground to sue your foulmouthed @rse off here, believe me. According to our Russian law the use of "mat" in a public place is offence enough, even if it isn't directed at anyone in particular. (For pity's sake, Friendy, we're talking real world here, you can skip your worthless quotes from online sources which have just about as much bearing on our country as I have knowledge of bolshoi theater dancers' eardrum pathologies.) What is being abused here is our public moral. If, however, this "mat" is being directed at a person, it constitues an even further offence, that of a particular person but public moral doesn't evaporate in this case. The law states quite clearly that the use of "mat" in a public place is a punishable offence even when not directed at anyone in particular and we've had this law for ages, what they're doing in Belgorod is simply treating it with due respect and enforcing the way it should be enforced.

And why on earth should people be subjected to the abuse of their human rights by being fined because of the words they use in their private conversation?

Because their private conversation has lead to an abuse of public moral - an offence punishable under the current law in Russia. You are intitled to privacy but not at the expense of breaking laws. Do you know Friendy, why people get arrested and charged with breach of peace if they start a fist fight in a public place even if all the parties involved are doing it willingly? Same reasons, Friendy. It's all in our laws. Study them. Respect them.

I'm skipping the rest of your post for it makes no sense at all. Your arguments would be OK in a sophistry class, but we've a real-life situation on our hands and we have real life laws in this country.

As a resident of Moscow I have just as much say in this matter as any other resident of Moscow (except for the politicians who have more say than anyone). And your opinion VM, of what is a good or bad law is just as worthless as my opinion in the eyes of the decision makers. When Russian citizens have the power to directly vote for their laws then you can be correct that I have no say.
My point is that this law is not going to protect anyone. There aren't enough police in all of Russia to stop people from swearing in public. And "protecting women and children" is such a crock of B.S. As a woman who spends a lot of time with children I can think of about a thousand other things we would rather be protected from.

Originally Posted by VendingMachine

Originally Posted by TexasMark

(2) Unless you are really clear in the ordinance/rule about prohibited words, it becomes very difficult to decide where its application begins and ends.

First of all may I remind you that we're talking about Russian here. You may not know this, not being a native speaker of Russian, so I will tell you - the thing is that in Russian there's a clear definition of which words and derivatives are considered profanity by the majority of native speakers. The law being inforced in Belgorod is exactly about those words and their derivates. Other words, albeit used for swearing, are not considered offensive. Actually, there has always been a law in Russia against the use of those particular words in public places and my parents tell me that in extreme cases the offender could even be given community service. So we're practically talking about a revival of a good old tradition.

That's a nice point. That would remove some, but not all, of my doubts about the law. It contrasts with many other languages, where swearing is a very dynamic and constantly changing part of the lexicon.