Thread: Mind Your Language

All you lot are good for is tossing the name of our glorious police around.

Quite possibly the funniest thing I have ever seen.

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/10/06/ ... eman.shtml

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/08/03/subwaycop.shtml

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/04/12/police.shtml

Originally Posted by VendingMachine

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.

Out of interest, I decided to spend some time and find this law. Here's the link: http://www.hro.org/docs/rlex/kadm/20.htm . Interestingly, they use the term "нецензурная брань" and I think it's arguable whether "undirected mat" may be implied here. But even if it was clear (let’s suppose there are some other documents that specify it), what we are discussing here is why this law should or shouldn't exist and simply stating the fact of it's existence is irrelevant.

What is being abused here is our public moral.

Then I think here lies our main difference. I think that the law can't be built on nothing but public moral or we would have a lot of rights violating laws, such as law against adultery, for example (and we know instances when such laws existed and still exist in some societies).

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.

I wouldn’t call real life laws anything that needs to be enforced. I would use this term for something that exists regardless of the official laws. For example, A has a quarrel with B and B calls him names using foul language. According to the law A has a right to sue B but in what percentage of such cases will A actually do that? In most cases he’ll just let it go and that is what I call a real life law.

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/10/05/zucchini.shtml

Whoa.

Originally Posted by JB

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/10/06/hammerpoliceman.shtml

A cop driving a Lada? Give me a break. The whole story is fictional.

Originally Posted by JB

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/08/03/subwaycop.shtml

Sure, shot him in the mouth. And what was he going to do with the body? Bury it in the garden? What garden, he was in the metro. Ah, chop it to pieces and feed it to the metro rats which grow as big as german shepherd dogs according to another moscow rag.

Originally Posted by JB

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/04/12/police.shtml

Kidnapping, eh. Men wearing police uniforms, eh. If you'd lived in Russia you'd've known that police uniforms are freely available and it's the most common disguise many criminals use these days. And how much did they pay them? $400? Not exactly a king's ransom, is it.

All three articles are nothing but lies, courtesy of the most lie-ridden newspaper in Russia.

Originally Posted by Линдзи

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/10/05/zucchini.shtml

Whoa.

Zucchini, eh. What about a man with a pointed stick?

Friendy, "нецензурная брань" is мат. It's legal goobledygook for what we call "мат" in colloquial Russian. There's no contradiction here, the law is very clear.

Then I think here lies our main difference. I think that the law can't be built on nothing but public moral or we would have a lot of rights violating laws, such as law against adultery, for example (and we know instances when such laws existed and still exist in some societies).

It probably does, though I never said that laws could be built on nothing but public moral, what I did say was that laws should be built with regard to public moral and thank God we have such wonderful laws that keep our citizens in check. As for a law against adultry - the public moral has nothing against it, Friendy, wake up and smell the coffee. If, however, the public moral did not approve of it then of course it would be better for all of us if we had such a law.

why this law should or shouldn't exist and simply stating the fact of it's existence is irrelevant

It is relevant. If it's there it means it's there for a reason - you don't see what that reason is, I can just about discern it, people with superior analitical abilities see every detail of it and our leaders know all there is to know about it. This law is there because we all need it - they don't exactly hire basket weavers to make laws, do they. It's for our own good and we must be grateful to our gov't that we have such people who take care even of this side of our lives. I am truly happy we have such a wonderful law.

For example, A has a quarrel with B and B calls him names using foul language. According to the law A has a right to sue B but in what percentage of such cases will A actually do that? In most cases he’ll just let it go and that is what I call a real life law.

I actually know people who have sued their verbal offenders quite successfully. But you're correct in saying that in most cases people don't go to court over such matters - it's so much more satisfying to punch your offender in the face, that's the reason why, Friendy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/news/7ocl ... 1203.shtml

http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0528-06.htm

http://tn.essortment.com/policebrutality_rken.htm

http://free.freespeech.org/americanstat ... ality.html

http://www.massbrutality.org/

...
and thousands more

Right, I'm convinced, Russian police are no more corrupt than anywhere else.

I'd better go call every single Russian I have ever met in my life to let them know the the truth, so that they can avoid spreading any more vicious and unfair rumours about their own police force. They will be surpised.

Originally Posted by scotcher

I'd better go call every single Russian I have ever met in my life to let them know the the truth, so that they can avoid spreading any more vicious and unfair rumours about their own police force. They will be surpised.

How old are you? I doubt you've met all that many Russians. I'm older than you and I've lived most of my life in Russia - I bet I've met a LOT more Russians than you have and most of them have nothing bad to say against our policemen. <Insert your favourite Divinity here> bless them, they've really done a lot to make our streets safe for all the good law-abiding citizens of this country.

P.S. I bet you've met a handful of doddering idiots with a it's always better where we are not complex.

Heh, OK VM, whatever you say.

Originally Posted by scotcher

Heh, OK VM, whatever you say.

Good, scotcher, you make a model forum member.

Nah, I just knew that if I estimated how many Russians I'd met in my life then in your next post you'd have asked me to prove it by naming each of them.

Originally Posted by scotcher

Nah, I just knew that if I estimated how many Russians I'd met in my life then in your next post you'd have asked me to prove it by naming each of them.

...something you wouldn't've been able to do because you probably have never met a single Russian in your life. I'm sure your "list" would have been a collection of fake names like Ivan Pushkin, Nikolay Petrov, Boris Smirnov, etc. Before you post your list, may I post a list of the Scottish people I've met? Here we go: Jock MacLeod, Hamish MacNasty, Tam Burns and Lezlie MacBlowhard.

Yep, nothing gets past you VM, I've never met a single Russian in my puff.

By the way, how do you know Jock, Hamish, Tam and Lez? They used to be the second most well-known barbershop quartet back on my home island.

It's very interesting how someone who claims to be a "native speaker" of Russian uses so many phrases that only Americans use. These phrases are scattered throughout this and other threads. Kinda makes you wonder how a native Russian would come to think these Americanisms were so clever that he had to use them when talking with other Russians. Don't you think he would use Russian colloquilisms instead?

Originally Posted by JB

It's very interesting how someone who claims to be a "native speaker" of Russian uses so many phrases that only Americans use. These phrases are scattered throughout this and other threads. Kinda makes you wonder how a native Russian would come to think these Americanisms were so clever that he had to use them when talking with other Russians. Don't you think he would use Russian colloquilisms instead?

To be fair, JB, I believe many of his colloquialisms are used back in Old Mother England also.

(Or maybe I, as a US citizen, just don't want to claim him as one of ours. )

OK Brits, speak up! Does anyone see anything distinctly British about any of VM's comments?

In fairness, yes, VM's grasp of British regional dialects and slang is so good that I would be amazed if he hadn't lived in Britain for a considerable amount of time. He has a handle on the nuances of natural usage that goes way beyond stereotype, and he is able to vary his writing style according to the tone of his post (how annoyed he is and who he's trying to wind up ), probably better than most Brits, at least over such a broad range of dialects/ accents. The one and only voice recording of his that I've heard was, as far as I could tell, perfect. I have absolutely no idea how someone who grew up speaking an entirely different language(s) could have mastered English so completely, but I'm not interested enough to ask him since I know I wouldn't get a straight answer anyway.

He's still mental though

Originally Posted by JB

OK Brits, speak up! Does anyone see anything distinctly British about any of VM's comments?

It's a safe bet that VM has at least lived in one of the Commonwealth countries. However I do know someone who learned English off the BBC but I don't know if one could get that good.