The Seven Words You Can't Say On TV

[ER]

Sixty years ago people cringed at hearing someone say f**k, but no one flinched at the word n****r. Today it's the other way around. I think we still have seven words you can't say on television, it's just those words have changed. We haven't changed, we still recoil, but the words, yes, the words have changed.

[Rev. Powell]

People flinched at the word n****r. Just not (some) white people. "Colored" was the polite term 60 years ago. (I don't know that you could ever say n****r on TV).

I wish f**k would go out of fashion. The word has lost all its power. When there are no taboos, there's no taboo-breaking.

It's much more rational to have taboos about hateful ethnic slurs than natural sex acts or "dirty" body parts.

[Svengoolie 3]

Oddly enough on a christian movie channel they showed blazing saddles and ni--er was ok on it,  but the campfire scene had the sound effects cut and lily von schtupp was censored.  So was the lights out scene.

Other channels block ni--er and fa--ot but not anything else.

I remembered seeing it in a normally christian channel was a shock to me.  So was censoring the campfire scene.

[ER]

I find myself split in two ways on the subject of offensive language. I love words, so as I think Reverend Powell was saying, I find satisfaction when words have enough power to actually convey the strong message they can sometimes be meant to convey, meaning it's good we have words that can actually reach out above the everyday and be shocking in themselves just as it's good to have words that stir feelings of love and pride and other strong emotions.

On the other hand, I place a huge value on free expression, and don't like being told that any words are off the table. We shrink at certain words no differently than our forebears did, only the words have (sometimes) changed.

But then again I actually don't like most crude language in everyday life, and think tact is also to be valued. So being able to say something but knowing when not to is a cornerstone of good manners and the best of both worlds.

Make sense?

[Pacman000]

People flinched at the word n****r. Just not (some) white people. "Colored" was the polite term 60 years ago. (I don't know that you could ever say n****r on TV).

I wish f**k would go out of fashion. The word has lost all its power. When there are no taboos, there's no taboo-breaking.

It's much more rational to have taboos about hateful ethnic slurs than natural sex acts or "dirty" body parts.

Brian's Song used N* quite a bit. Shocked me. (That was a TV movie, wasn't it?) Of course, within context, the word's use made sense. And it was obviously a bad word in the context of the movie.

I'm generally against treating sexual acts casually, so I'd nix F* too. Some words, like Dick, can be hard to handle since our language has changed over time.  :/

[Alex]

When I used to work on 617, there was talk of a remake of 'The Dambusters'. It ended up not happening mostly down to the fact that Guy Gibson had a dog called n****r. The script writers wanted to change the name (to Trigger or Digger), while whoever was producing, or holding the rights to the film wanted them it to be historically accurate and refused them permission to change it. The movie got stuck on this point and to the best of my knowledge is still stuck in development hell.

[Pacman000]

Out of curiosity, what are the 7 words?

The seven dirty words are seven English-language words that American comedian George Carlin first listed in 1972 in his monologue "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television". The words are: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits.
Seven dirty words - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_dirty_words

Thanks, Google.

[quabrot]

Oddly enough on a christian movie channel they showed blazing saddles and ni--er was ok on it,  but the campfire scene had the sound effects cut and lily von schtupp was censored.  So was the lights out scene.

Other channels block ni--er and fa--ot but not anything else.

I remembered seeing it in a normally christian channel was a shock to me.  So was censoring the campfire scene.

Whenever I see Blazing Saddles on TV, I am baffled at what is censored and what is not. 

[ER]

I think n****r might be the one word I've ever known Turner Classic Movies to bleep out, even in a context that was making the person who said it look like he had two brain cells on leave from the older sister who gave birth to him. I also know the makers of Gone With the Wind reassured representatives of the Negro community the word would not be used in the film, and it wasn't.

If you know a word is genuinely going to hurt someone, try not to use it, but if you go around claiming it offends you, don't say you have fair right to use it yourself whenever you feel like it. (Which goes on a lot.)

You know, it's odd, I don't think that word is as loathed in Ireland as elsewhere, because I've heard it there many times, and never exactly in a mean context. Like in the Tiger years my Uncle Denis and I were walking past a bunch of Polish workers, and he said, "Finally somebody around is here more n****r than we are."

In the recent past the Irish still self-deprecatingly called themselves n****rs. I asked Magda about it and she said, "Use it all you want, it belongs to us after we've been called that for so long."

I asked her why exactly I'd want to paint myself with a disparaging word, and she said because it's liberating. At least she doesn't claim to be offended by a word she sometimes used to describe herself.

Too many rules in this world.

[Allhallowsday]

...
But then again I actually don't like most crude language in everyday life, and think tact is also to be valued. So being able to say something but knowing when not to is a cornerstone of good manners and the best of both worlds.
...

I think tact is the cornerstone of class.