Radio - foul language

Dave Kearton wrote:

snip

Point well made - however, just as some people would prefer not to hear such
words in conversation, possibly the same would not want to see them as
well. Veiling a word behind #$@% is tantamount to beeping out a
word on TV

I'd have to disagree: if there is no doubt what the word is, how are anyone's
presumably tender sensibilities being protected?

and now, putting an electronic patch to prevent the
tender-hearted from accidentally lipreading something offensive.

I guess it's time to stock smelling salts again, to revive all the fragile souls
who will be swooning into a dead faint from the mere knowledge that someone has
used an anglo-saxonism. Where is Queen Victoria when we need her?

While I've done precisely as you describe, just recently, I tend to agree
with you. OTOH, part of polite discourse in the company of those of
whom you are not familiar, is not to use terms or language that will
reasonably offend anybody.

Certainly. Just because one may have the vocabulary of a teamster doesn't mean
that it's appropriate to use it on all occasions. I _am_ a teamster, but being
around people every day who repeat the words I listed in my previous post (with
numerous minor variations) hundreds of times a day, I'm not shocked by their
use, just bored. Most people who can't manage to string more than three or four
words together without using one of the aforementioned anglo-saxonisms are
either suffering from a limited vocabulary, are lazy, or else feel that it
somehow makes them seem more macho.

Overuse of these words removes much of their force, which is a shame. Used
sparingly and in the right circumstances, cursing can be appropriate and even an
art form, and it's not necessary to use profanity. TM Oliver and Eugene
Griessel over on r.a.m. manage to be far more entertaining and much less
repetitive than my fellow workers. Well, perhaps they to tend to ascribe a 'wee
bit ower much' to the cursee (or his/her antecedents) bestial practices
involving camels, but that's a minor criticism.

But I digress. All I'm saying is that I find it hard to believe that any
rational person who would be offended by hearing or seeing the more vigorous
english swear words, is less likely to be offended if the word is disguised with
asterisks, dashes or just misspelled. Were the people who would be offended by
seeing the word '****' and its variations in print, any less offended when
Norman Mailer bowdlerized it into 'fug' instead in the "Naked and the Dead",
because it was a close as contemporary bluenoses would let him come to
accurately conveying the dialog of his characters? When Dr. Evil or Grace
("Will and Grace") uses 'Fricking' in place of '****ing,' is anyone fooled?
Like the current hullabaloo about Janet Jackson at the Superbowl, this is pure
hypocracy, brought on by silly censorship.

Same same with 'g_d', 'G_d' and 'god'. My Baptist roots go way
back; if you have to use his name in vain - at least spell it correctly.

It's not exactly a new phenomenon. Maybe depression-era audiences really were
that naive, but somehow I doubt that audiences had any trouble translating W.C.
Fields' exclamation "Godfrey Daniels!" when he was expessing exasperation. Such
silly games are brought on by people trying to evade the usually illogical and
often idiotic dictates of censors, such as those of the old Hays Code or the
Broadcast Standards department of a TV network.

Guy