WWW.RIDESIDE.NET

home | about | tracker | comics

*the* place for collaborative e-snowboarding
Posted by pchippy on 2005-08-08 23:39:17 +0000

No, I didn't swear.

SWEARING, properly defined, is when you enter into a sort of contract giving God the right to do something very bad to you if you're lying or you fail to keep your word. If I say "Well, I'll be damned" or "You come down from there this minute or so help me God I'll come up there and kick your ass" I'm swearing, though I may not be consciously aware that I am. The resulting speech act is properly termed an OATH. Then there's CURSING. As the name implies, it involves expressing a wish for bad things to happen to something or somebody. If I say "Damn this hot, muggy weather" or "Go to hell" I'm obviously cursing. Both swearing and cursing, when they're used not in spiritual earnest but simply as a secularized expression of the intensity of one's feeling, constitute PROFANITY--that is, language that takes sacred things and uses them in an irreligious context. Profanity can include other forms of language that don't necessarily fall into the categories of oaths and curses, though. If I say "Jesus H. Christ--who the hell do you think you are?" I'm engaged in profanity. Profanity has lost a lot of its force in the last hundred and fifty years, as society has become secularized. So a lot of people have turned to OBSCENITY to take up the expressive slack--which properly refers to the "dirty" language of bodily functions when such language is used primarily in order to shock, to offend, to titillate, etc. I try to avoid using earthy language for these purposes in my everyday life--not because the words themselves are wrong, but because A.) it's not nice to want to offend people, and B.) [as a character in one of Vonnegut's novels points out] foul language gives people around you free license to get angry and offended and not actually to engage with whatever you have to say. For instance, if you yell at your roommate to "Pick up your shit!" when what you really mean by "shit" is "dirty socks, empty Coke bottle, and last April's issue of Maxim," you're using obscenity, and your roommate will quite likely respond with hostility and defensiveness--and with more obscenity. But if, in discussing the problems of disposal of human waste in an outdoors/recreational setting, I use the honorably Anglo-Saxon word "shit" to refer to said human waste, have I used obscenity? I don't think so, any more than a women's-health website is being obscene when it talks about "breasts" in the context of mammograms and self-exams.

Posted by tendiamonds on 2005-08-09 04:05:56 +0000
But what about when the women's health magazine talks about titties?

Posted by pamsterdam on 2005-08-09 05:58:58 +0000
Also not obscenity. But while boobs which measure B or smaller can be called "titties", those which are C or larger must - technically - be referred to as "tits". Molly Ringwald ([i]Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, etc.[/i]) = titties. [img]http://www.xenix.ch/new/images/movie/386.jpg[/img] Any female in Russ Meyer's films = tits. [img]http://www.f4.ca/ultravixen/images/svix01.jpg[/img] So beware side-stepping the landmine of obscenity only to get slammed by the tank of inaccuracy. ***** P.S. Thanks, PChippy, for the very entertaining read (as always)!

Posted by frame609 on 2005-08-09 07:24:34 +0000
Don't matter if they b cups or c cups or d cups, whatever. I'm hotta than a nigga that's wearing fow sweaters.

Posted by pamsterdam on 2005-08-09 07:43:07 +0000
I was [i]this[/i] close to asking you if a "fow" is some type of genetically engineered wooly creature, good for making extra-warm sweaters, perhaps a cross between a ferret and a cow...

Posted by pamsterdam on 2005-08-09 08:02:30 +0000
Oh, and by the way, neither is inherently better than the other - each person has his/her own preferences (or, in frame's case, lack thereof) - and both types have their own benefits & drawbacks (both for owners and aficionados).

Posted by Miriam on 2005-08-09 14:49:44 +0000
You know, you have friends who are bigger than a D cup.

Posted by pamsterdam on 2005-08-09 14:54:38 +0000
Yeah, but he hates us. So it totally doesn't matter. :-)

Posted by Miriam on 2005-08-09 15:20:39 +0000
Tee-hee. Tit-tee. Tittie.

Posted by pamsterdam on 2005-08-09 15:24:50 +0000
Such a fine word, really. Right up there with "panties".

Posted by Miriam on 2005-08-09 15:34:55 +0000
For anything D and up I prefer jugs or knockers.

Posted by pamsterdam on 2005-08-09 17:30:09 +0000
Gazongas, ta-tas, boobular infarctions, bazookas, squishy boing-boings...

Posted by frame609 on 2005-08-09 17:34:37 +0000
Time for another repost.

Posted by Miriam on 2005-08-09 18:30:20 +0000
Poor anorexic Lindsey Lohan. She does have big boobs. Good for her.

Posted by tendiamonds on 2005-08-09 18:55:54 +0000
I've been waiting for that all day

Posted by bizquig3000 on 2005-08-09 21:04:28 +0000
I paid for them titties, get your own!

Posted by tgl on 2005-08-10 04:00:26 +0000
And I believe it's derogatory to refer to a woman's breasts as "boobs", "jugs", "winnebagos" or "golden bozos".. and that you should only refer to them as "hooters". many thanks

Posted by pamsterdam on 2005-08-10 07:44:14 +0000
I love that guy. Thanks for the mammaries, tgl!

Posted by tendiamonds on 2005-08-10 11:55:19 +0000
Love it. I've been a fan of that site ever since I saw [url=http://snltranscripts.jt.org/02/02chardball.phtml]this sketch[/url]... I go back and read it periodically. "Poodles are the black man of the dog world!" Wow. I also have found myself quoting [url=http://snltranscripts.jt.org/86/86nhercules.phtml]this sketch[/url] many times over the years, only to discover I've been misquoting it... (I say "That boulder is much too large, perhaps a smaller one")

Posted by frame609 on 2005-08-10 17:58:12 +0000
The second sketch! "My back!"

E-mail to tgl@rideside.net to add your tumblr.
Find me on github.