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From today's Non Sequitur. (I couldn't get the image to come up)
"If you say a word that isn't a swear word, but you mean it in the same way, is it still cussing?"
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old hand
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old hand
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Like with all good questions, the answer begins with "it depends.." - here e.g. how you say it, and to whom. If you address a donkey as "ass" he is hardly entitled to feel insulted..
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Carpal Tunnel
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formerly known as etaoin...
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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You jes' hold yur water, boy!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Similar question came to me in an email from a cousin who forwards everything. Came as a Darwn Award-wannabe-type anecdote: A man walks into a store, puts down a twenty-dollar bill and asks for change, and when the clerk opens the till, stick a gun in his face and demands everything in the register. He takes all the cash and runs, leaving the twenty on the counter. Total cash in till: fifteen dollars.
Question: If a man points a gun at you and gives you money, have you been robbed?
(As circulated, the question was "...has a crime been committed?" To which the answer is Yes, of course: assault with a deadly weapon, intent to commit robbery, etc...)
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Carpal Tunnel
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"If you say a word that isn't a swear word, but you mean it in the same way, is it still cussing?" Darn tootin'!  I've even had animals cuss at me; most notably squirrels. Question: If a man points a gun at you and gives you money, have you been robbed? Only if he takes something from you. Neat questions, guys!
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veteran
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veteran
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Question: If a man points a gun at you and gives you money, have you been robbed?
You was robbed, but was youse in danger? Some folk can sound PC, but seem like they're cursing. What does intention have to do with speech acts?
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Carpal Tunnel
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What does intention have to do with speech acts? An other (hi, Helen!) good question. I'll give you an example. There was a period of oh, maybe about a year or more, between my son's learning to talk and his acquisition of ready voacbulary beyond the basics. When he'd get mad at me, he'd get so frustrated trying to tell me off that he'd resort to making up words, the only one of which I remember is "meaniac".
As to intent: I think that that can vary not only from speaker to speaker, but from time to time for an individual. Do we want to make a good impression? Put on airs? Act dumb? Fit in? The list goes on and on.
There is a commercial on TV for some sort of mattress, and the couple on the screen has (supposedly) tried it. The lady says something like, "Now I can get out of bed without him...without waking him up". I would bet every cent I have (all two of them) that she had been going to say "without him waking up", but decided to opt for more proper grammar than vernacular. They were on television, after all.
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There are, of course, in English, two basic types of cussing. One is the Second Commandment violation type, which I don't want to get in to here for several reasons. The other would be use of vulgar words for various bodily processes. I would suggest that that type of cussing is avoided to the extent that the word choice does not suggest the proscribed word(s). Therefore, piffle or tommyrot would be acceptable, but horse-puckey would be borderline, and bullshimmy would be over the line.
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veteran
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over the line
How about swearing to unknown or make-believe gods?
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swearing to unknown or make-believe gods
What kind of "swearing?" It's a tricky case on a defining of terms ;)
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What kind of "swearing?"
Merdre!, yes indeed. One swears to one's truthfulness by invoking the gods or with hand on one's cod. It's a short slippery slope from this kind of solemnity to a linguistic ejaculation of the "you know" sort of hedge.
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Merdre!
Nice one, Nuncle Ubu.
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