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Recent Publications by New English Review Authors
Not With a Bang But a Whimper: The Politics and Culture of Decline
by Theodore Dalrymple
In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas
by Theodore Dalrymple
Defending The West:
by Ibn Warraq
Nations, Language and Citizenship:
by Norman Berdichevsky
Romancing Opiates
by Theodore Dalrymple
Which Koran?
by Ibn Warraq
Our Culture, What's Left of It
by Theodore Dalrymple
What The Koran Really Says
by Ibn Warraq
Life at the Bottom
by Theodore Dalrymple
The Origins of the Koran
by Ibn Warraq
Why I Am Not Muslim
by Ibn Warraq
Spanish Vignettes: An Offbeat Look Into Spain's Culture, Society & History
by Norman Berdichevsky
Leaving Islam
Edited by Ibn Warraq
Sunday, 20 July 2008
Observing Verbal Decorum

I will repeat this one more time for Mary.

Some may remember George Carlin's "Seven Little Words You Can Never Say on Television" routine, and the banning of that routine by the FCC, and the resulting case which went all the way to the Supreme Court, the Court affirming a lower court's upholding the constitutionality of the FCC's banning words that it considered "patently offensive."

It would be good, since such "patently offensive words" seldom convince, and always lower the tone, if attempts were made to suppress the urge to use them at this website.

One can, after all, smuggle all kinds of things in through a poker-faced pun, so as not to outwardly disturb public morals.

One example. from a comment posted, about a list some magazine had compiled of the "20 Most Important Intellectuals":

"No Tariq Ramadan? No Cornel West? No Jeffery Sachs? This list is not nearly as completely 100% awful as it should be; the presence of Umberto Eco at #2 throws one off.

But nothing takes the cake like having Thomas Friedman, the man who uses his fingers to "make" "quotation" "mark" "signs" "around" "words" when he talks, appear on a list of the “20 Most Important” or indeed on any list at all, of "intellectuals."

The world is flat, says never-doubting-for-a-minute Thomas Friedman. Platitudes, plongitudes.

Le monde est bien plat. Quant a l'autre, sornettes
. Put that in your pipe (ceci n'est pas une pipe, as the dissatisfied customer complained loudly to the management of the maison close on rue Chabanais), you compilers of such idiotic lists -- and smoke it.   

One of those Seven Little Words is present, wearing an Inspector Clouseau disguise as it glides virtually unnoticed through the art gallery, in the last sentence. Those who read that posting would not have been offended. A matter of phrasing. A matter of tact.

The failure to observe the rules of verbal decorum could drive away visitors. In the past such a problem would not have arisen. The line between the seemly and the unseemly, le cru et le cuit, would have been clearly demarcated. But unseemly language can now be encountered at every stratum of society. It can be heard in the speech of the grasping stock market racketeer in his home office, next to his home gym, in New Canaan, Connecticut. It can be heard in the lecture of the tie-less, suit-less, sock-less professor on Morningside Heights who, wishing to demonstrate to his students just how with-it he can be, delivers himself of phrases that fail to impress, his crude quotes left to haunt him when they appear, unexpunged and unexpungeable, in the next edition of the Student Guide to Professors.

Unseemliness can even be detected on the lips of the non-native speaker of English. Just imagine a well-bred and fetching French agronomist, winsome and wayward, deeply involved in an irrumation project in Mentula, Mississippi, who has learned from the locals to reproduce an expression the meaning of which she, in her innocence, does not fully grasp. Under the circumstances, one would naturally forgive her lapses of langue and parole.

In order to keep the site presentable and accounted for, one has to be a little less forgiving here. 

As the raspy-voiced referee with the cigar stub jammed in the side of his mouth always says just before the opening bell sounds for the first round of the bout in Madison Square Garden: Got that, boys? Just make sure you keep things clean. No hitting below the belt. Now get out there and fight.

 

Posted on 1:14 PM by Hugh Fitzgerald
Comments
20 Jul 2008
Send an emailMary Jackson

Well, I don't know which word you mean, but if you mean the f-ll-tr-x word, you used it first.

What's the difference, in your first paragraph between the FCC and the FFC?



20 Jul 2008
John M. J.

Observing Verbal Decorum (OVD)

It is of some small interest that OVD also stands for Old Vatted Demerara - a wonderfully sweet rum. It also stands for Optically Variable Device, which, of course, is what some of us might just consider such rum to be if consumed in some quantity!

OVD dark rum is blended from the very finest demerara rums in the world which have been matured in oak casks. This maturation process gives OVD its smoothness, flavour and character. OVD has the distinctive aroma of all oak matured spirits and is blended from some of the finest Demarera rums, which must have matured for up to seven years, or longer, in oak barrels.

OVD, at its best,  is a smooth, almost creamy rum, with complex soft set sugar toffee overtones and a hint, just a hint, of ripe sweet mango fruitiness on the palate. There is a really mellow, English Autumn, finish to it, as well. Good OVD Rum should be sipped neat before bed. If you're feeling extravagant, it makes the finest Rum Punch - especially on Christmas Eve when such a Punch is the perfect drink with rich, fresh from the oven, Mince Pies!

However, OVD as an injunction, a command - Observe Verbal Decorum here - seems slightly insipid, slightly, just ever so, banal. Billy Wobbledagger didn't OVD. The early Restoration comedies certainly didn't. Chaucer most certainly didn't. There is a richness, an earthiness, to English which cannot be denied or obfuscated.

The 'f' word. the 'b' word. the 'd' word and the 'G' word are all woven into the great language which we all speak. It is senseless to deny their existence or to modify our speech in order to please the mealy-mouthed who see offence in every sentence and who exercise their prudery ahead of their common sense.

Of course, gratuitous use of such words cheapens the language and lessens their impact. However, I believe that certain, and judicious, use of these words - openly and with no complex puns or circumlocutory language involved - can be correct and needed in some circumstances.

Oh, and sometimes, just sometimes, one must be coarse and humorous about sex - that most risible of human pre-occupations - and all its associated words and euphemisms, no matter who might be offended by your so doing. Sex, after all, is what one carries coal in - leastways, in Morningside and Kelvingrove.

Innuendo anyone? No, it's not some type of Italian suppository - get your mind out of the gutter, or lie there and gaze at the stars!



21 Jul 2008
Artemis

Without wanting to walk into a buzz saw, or two opposing buzz saws, and therefore setting aside the particulars of the case at hand, whatever it may or may not be...

It seems to me that some level of adecorum (yes, I made that up) is one of the things we're fighting for.  Just as the musical and cinematic interludes containing un-niqabbed and unescorted females and the kufirs who love them stand as a reminder of our values and freedoms, so does the occasional reference to debatably naughty words.

Not that this is advocating for blatant and coarse vulgarity; not that that is an accurate description for this case; and I'm going to stop now.



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