The Art of Swearing

Another sign of American cultural decline.

I am not familiar with the show "Veep", but this Tumblr reviewer makes some interesting observations about the difference in cussing between Americans and Anglos (the English). I don't know if it's true, but if it is not, it does have that bit of truthiness in it that makes it compelling.

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The swearing in “Veep” has so far not been as satisfying to me as it has been in Ianucci’s other work, and I think it’s because the writers aren’t entirely getting the important differences between Anglo swearing and American swearing. Anglo swearing is ornate, clever, and florid; American swearing is brutal, repetitious, and earthy. There’s a reason they sell t-shirts on St. Mark’s Place that read “FUCK YOU YOU FUCKIN FUCK.” Swearing in ”The Thick of It” showed control in the midst of a tantrum, like a well-placed kick in the middle of a marital arts routine. It demonstrated that the speaker was ready to just let forth a string of invective but was powerful enough to channel it into something laced with cultural references and word-games. In America, though, swearing tends to signal the threat of violence, the moment when coarse language gets even coarser. It’s a heightener. “He’s got his eight-track playing really fuckin’ loud” would, in the Anglo incarnation, be something like “His eight-track was so fucking loud that Helen Keller could hear it four fucking blocks away” or something.

-- Barthel

The Art of Swearing

Another sign of American cultural decline.

I am not familiar with the show "Veep", but this Tumblr reviewer makes some interesting observations about the difference in cussing between Americans and Anglos (the English). I don't know if it's true, but if it is not, it does have that bit of truthiness in it that makes it compelling.

_ _ _

The swearing in “Veep” has so far not been as satisfying to me as it has been in Ianucci’s other work, and I think it’s because the writers aren’t entirely getting the important differences between Anglo swearing and American swearing. Anglo swearing is ornate, clever, and florid; American swearing is brutal, repetitious, and earthy. There’s a reason they sell t-shirts on St. Mark’s Place that read “FUCK YOU YOU FUCKIN FUCK.” Swearing in ”The Thick of It” showed control in the midst of a tantrum, like a well-placed kick in the middle of a marital arts routine. It demonstrated that the speaker was ready to just let forth a string of invective but was powerful enough to channel it into something laced with cultural references and word-games. In America, though, swearing tends to signal the threat of violence, the moment when coarse language gets even coarser. It’s a heightener. “He’s got his eight-track playing really fuckin’ loud” would, in the Anglo incarnation, be something like “His eight-track was so fucking loud that Helen Keller could hear it four fucking blocks away” or something.

-- Barthel

PostSecret of the Week

Too true.

PostSecret of the Week

Too true.

Big Money, Little Democracy

If you thought American politics was corrupted by big money before, just wait and see what will happen now that the Supreme Court has untied the corporate money bags to flow into our elections. God, what is America going to look like in another twenty years...

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It will be an uphill fight. Republican interest groups are outspending Ms. McCaskill and other Missouri Democrats by a 7-to-1 ratio; Ms. McCaskill herself is being outspent by 3 to 1. Though she has raised nearly $10 million, the amount could be dwarfed by the unlimited money at the disposal of Republican-oriented groups.

Once again, as in 2010, Congressional races will be the elections most affected by unregulated slush-fund money. Though “super PACs” and secretive independent groups will be spending hundreds of millions on the presidential race, it is at the Congressional level where big money can have the most impact. Many candidates, particularly in smaller states, cannot compete with independent groups, allowing individual wealthy donors to have an oversized influence on the future of the House or the Senate.

Already, conservative interest groups have spent more than $17 million on televised attack ads in state and local races, and Jeremy Peters of The Times recently reported that they plan to spend more than $100 million by November. Total outside spending on Congressional races this year is likely to exceed the $300 million level of 2010.

-- New York Times editorial

Big Money, Little Democracy

If you thought American politics was corrupted by big money before, just wait and see what will happen now that the Supreme Court has untied the corporate money bags to flow into our elections. God, what is America going to look like in another twenty years...

_ _ _

It will be an uphill fight. Republican interest groups are outspending Ms. McCaskill and other Missouri Democrats by a 7-to-1 ratio; Ms. McCaskill herself is being outspent by 3 to 1. Though she has raised nearly $10 million, the amount could be dwarfed by the unlimited money at the disposal of Republican-oriented groups.

Once again, as in 2010, Congressional races will be the elections most affected by unregulated slush-fund money. Though “super PACs” and secretive independent groups will be spending hundreds of millions on the presidential race, it is at the Congressional level where big money can have the most impact. Many candidates, particularly in smaller states, cannot compete with independent groups, allowing individual wealthy donors to have an oversized influence on the future of the House or the Senate.

Already, conservative interest groups have spent more than $17 million on televised attack ads in state and local races, and Jeremy Peters of The Times recently reported that they plan to spend more than $100 million by November. Total outside spending on Congressional races this year is likely to exceed the $300 million level of 2010.

-- New York Times editorial

Cas (Preface) Emptying the Purse of My Friends

We have yet to get beyond the preface, and already we can see Casanova betraying a certain moral blindness in his defrauding of “friends” with an easygoing rationalization in the service of his own pleasure.

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They will not form a wrong opinion of me when they see one emptying the purse of my friends to satisfy my fancies, for those friends entertained idle schemes and by giving them the hope of success I trusted to disappointment to cure them. I would deceive them to make them wiser, and I did not consider myself guilty, for I applied to my own enjoyment sums of money which would have been lost in the vain pursuit of possessions denied by nature; therefore I was not actuated by any avaricious rapacity. I might think myself guilty if I were rich now, but I have nothing. I have squandered everything; it is my comfort and my justification. The money was intended for extravagant follies, and by applying it to my own frolics I did not turn it into a very different channel.

-- Casanova, The Memoirs

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See, when you think about it, it is all really very Christian.

Cas (Preface) Emptying the Purse of My Friends

We have yet to get beyond the preface, and already we can see Casanova betraying a certain moral blindness in his defrauding of “friends” with an easygoing rationalization in the service of his own pleasure.

_ _ _

They will not form a wrong opinion of me when they see one emptying the purse of my friends to satisfy my fancies, for those friends entertained idle schemes and by giving them the hope of success I trusted to disappointment to cure them. I would deceive them to make them wiser, and I did not consider myself guilty, for I applied to my own enjoyment sums of money which would have been lost in the vain pursuit of possessions denied by nature; therefore I was not actuated by any avaricious rapacity. I might think myself guilty if I were rich now, but I have nothing. I have squandered everything; it is my comfort and my justification. The money was intended for extravagant follies, and by applying it to my own frolics I did not turn it into a very different channel.

-- Casanova, The Memoirs

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See, when you think about it, it is all really very Christian.

The Friend Zone

The Friend Zone

The Test of Love

All appeals to "what the Bible says" are ideological and problematic. But in the end, all appeals, whether to the Bible or anything else, must submit to the test of love. To people who say this is simplistic, I say, far from it. There are no easy answers. "Love" will not work as a foundation for ethics in a prescriptive or predictable fashion either -- as can be seen by all the injustices, imperialisms, and violence committed in the name of love. But rather than expecting the answer to come from a particular method of reading the Bible, we at least push the discussion to where it ought to be: into the realm of debates about Christian love, rather than into either fundamentalism or modernist historicism.

We ask the question that must be asked: "What is the loving thing to do?"

-- Dale Martin

The Test of Love

All appeals to "what the Bible says" are ideological and problematic. But in the end, all appeals, whether to the Bible or anything else, must submit to the test of love. To people who say this is simplistic, I say, far from it. There are no easy answers. "Love" will not work as a foundation for ethics in a prescriptive or predictable fashion either -- as can be seen by all the injustices, imperialisms, and violence committed in the name of love. But rather than expecting the answer to come from a particular method of reading the Bible, we at least push the discussion to where it ought to be: into the realm of debates about Christian love, rather than into either fundamentalism or modernist historicism.

We ask the question that must be asked: "What is the loving thing to do?"

-- Dale Martin