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Subject:Words, Words, Words, I'm So Sick of Words! From:Moshe Koenig <alsacien -at- NETVISION -dot- NET -dot- IL> Date:Tue, 17 Sep 1996 17:53:29 PDT
So much uproar over a one-syllable word.
What I meant to say is what I said: even if I, or you, or my Aunt
Sadie (WHAT Aunt Sadie?) uses "that word" freely, we can do so
in private and nobody gets ruffled. However, a phrase that I keep
hearing as a warning to children about WWF, Power Rangers, and such
blow-hard die-hards: DON'T TRY IT AT HOME! In this case, the
reverse is true: ONLY AT HOME, when you know you won't offend.
I'm as adult as anyone else on the forum (oops -- that might not
be such a compliment, come to think of it), and I'm not one to get
my feathers ruffled over a four-letter word (especially since I don't
have feathers), but I wouldn't exactly expect to watch an Eddie Murphy
film in a monastery, if you know what I mean. There is such a thing
as putting things in the right place. There are plenty of places on
the Internet in which a person can use whatever language he/she
chooses without fear of censure, but for the most part, they aren't
professional discussion groups.
I participate in a number of discussion groups that deal more with
political issues, with personal issues, etc., and in those forums,
the restrictions are considerably less stringent, but there is a
reason: the idea is to enable the participant to speak out. However,
I've seen it time and time again: once the language boasts too many
epithets, it's only a matter of time before tempers flare, e-mail
messages flame, and in a number of cases, sites closed because the
participants couldn't even share the same place in cyberspace. If
that were the purpose of TECHWR-L, I'd say we had to take the risk,
but it isn't; we have work to do and need to learn from each other.
It's more priorities than prudery, in my opinion. What do we want more,
to swear or to learn?
- Moshe
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