Why are "bad" words bad?

[YankeeSergeant]

BAD words

I don't know that there is a logical reason. I guess there are words deemed bad because they offend some people.

[mariab]

Eww, the model spotting the T-shirts is seriously unsightly.
After a while the word “skyvalon“ started resonating. I'm sure someone older, like my mom, might know it. I'll remember to ask her next time I talk to her, like a good daughter.

[lynn cates]

T-shirt

Hello Maria. Then there is this.

http://www.zazzle.com/skubalon_happe...98271736002068

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Hello Lynn.
Koine Greek is about as far away from modern Greek as Elizabethan English from modern English, and actually even less. Thus my ignorance of “skybalon“ and eschatology is mainly connected to my innocence. (Oh, yes.)

[lynn cates]

Koine

Hello Maria.

"I used to be an ace in ancient Greek . . ."

Ah! And that's the rub. I daresay this is not ancient Greek but rather Koine.

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

To Chris:
I like Spike very-very much too, definitely one of my favorite characters, and possibly the most complex one in the show. I love the way he talks, and his good sense, sensitivity, and honest romanticism. Plus he can take care of himself (and others). The character I identify with most is Faith – without any repercussions of ending up beating up people in discos, although I've been tempted, so who knows? (I've actually been in a fight in front of a disco in Hossegor, didn't even get a scratch, while the guy in front of me got his ear almost torn off by a bouncer.) Only dif, Faith quit high school while I have a Ph.D., but I didn't grow up quite like she did, and she's truly intelligent. I loved how she picked up the significance of “Spartan“ from her (evil) watcher, Ms. Gwendolyn Price (now that's a British name, if any).

To Lynn Cates:
You're very impressive, and a real gentleman. (Although once I was very impressed by something of yours that happened to have originated from Tom Wescott, who isn't exactly the dictionary's definition of a gentleman. Although sometimes he gets very gentleman-like, and genuinely so. It kinda comes and goes. The former matter is an allusion to the IWEC and Israel Schwartz...)
I'm afraid that "skubalon" is unknown to me. I used to be an ace in ancient Greek, was one of my main A levels subject (or the Greek equivalent to A levels, SATs, the bac(calaureat), but they never taught us about sh*t and (e)schatology.

[Chris]

Bet Chris' fave character in the show is Rupert Giles (alias The Ripper in his youth).

No - it has to be the character who gave "Manchester Bloody United" as his reason for averting the end of the world.

[lynn cates]

skubalon

Hello Maria.

"I've been impressed by Lynn Cates before . . ."

Why?

"his posts in the beginning of this thread don't appear to me as anything out of the ordinary."

Now you're talking.

I think the word used was "skubalon" (forgive the English script).

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

I thought that “motherf*cker“ was essentially (black) American and not British, but possibly due to its having been popularized by rap, soon reaching MTV status in the 1990s. I thought that the Brits had their own select rich collection of fine insults and gestures.
Chris Phillips' reference to Btvs (“Because it's wrong“) was real! When I first saw it, I thought it a coincidence! I had no idea there are other fellow Buffy bufs on casebook, particularly from England, and such serious researchers too... Bet Chris' fave character in the show is Rupert Giles (alias The Ripper in his youth).

[protohistorian]

They are bad because I f*cking said so! Don't make me pull this website over! Dave

[mariab]

Hmmm... I've been impressed by Lynn Cates before, more than once, but his posts in the beginning of this thread don't appear to me as anything out of the ordinary.
Hello Lynn,
did apostle Paul use the word “eschatos“ or something worse (as in “eschata“) in the letter in question? (Coincidentally, “eschatology“ has its provenance from the word “shit“ in Greek (“eschata“, today “schata“, “eschatos“ meaning “the lowest“ or “the lastest“).

[Graham]

I remember being quite shocked when I visited the US in the 1960s and heard people merrily using the words c*cksucker and motherf*cker, both words being totally unknown in Britain then. Even now nobody here ever uses them. On the other hand, back then, the exclamation 'Sh*t or 'Oh, sh*t' was never used by Brits but it's certainly widely used here now.

Would I be right in thinking the 'polite' US word Jerk refers to 'unmentionable vices'.

You must have led a sheltered life, mate. c-o-c-k****** and Mother****er were both widely-used by the low-life I mingled with in the England of the 1960's, and how you can blandly say that s-h-i-t was never used as an exclamation by we Brits in them days just beats me. You're not a ******* vicar, are you?

Graham

[mariab]

I'm a Buffy buf, and I totally dig it when British vampire Spike utters “bollocks“, “ninnies“, “We few, we happy few, we band of buggered“ – the latter (mis)quoting the Saint Crispin's Day speech from Henry V. (I guess it's all exotic to me, as I'm essentially closer to America than Britain.)

Protohistorian wrote:
Western culture, as a whole is riddled with class differentiation.
Actually, not really, and this tendency is definitely reclining since the mid 19th century. Eastern cultures (particularly Indian, Arabic, and Chinese) are even more strongly and suffocatingly defined by casts.

Tom Wescott wrote:
As well it should be. If one person makes an effort to better themselves and thereby the world around them, and another chooses to sit on their butt and mooch and be a useless layabout, then it is only natural that the world at large will value the former more than the latter and treat them accordingly. It's all about choice.
You're talking about meritocracy here, Tom, not class distinctions. Class is supposed to be by birth or acquired money from someone's family, so it's essentially non-merited privilege.
And now to read Lynn's early post, about which I'm very curious.

[Jenni Shelden]

so tempted to write "because they ******* are"

[Victor]

That was my attempt at a reference to popular culture (popular about a decade ago, anyway). I nearly didn't use it because I thought it might be too obscure. But it turned out to be the second hit on a Google search for the first of those phrases ...

Ah sorry Chris, I'm not a Buffy buff.

KR,
Vic.