College stations and bad language

[A. Joseph Ross]

Bob and Donna were talking about college stations this morning, and the use of bad 
language on the air.  I'm not up on the latest FCC regs, but I thought it was partly a matter of 
context and time of day.  I've heard the F-word on WMUA, but only late at night, when one 
assumes that only adults are listening.

On altered versions of songs, I remember a song in the early 60s called "My Boomerang 
Won't Come Back," about an Australian aborigine, the chief's son, who couldn't learn to use 
his boomerang.  In the original, it had a line which went "I waved the thing all over the place, 
practice till I was black in the face..."  After a few weeks, a new version appeared, in which 
he practiced till he was =blue= in the face.

Of course, the use of some bad language goes back quite far.  In Gilbert & Sullivan's H.M.S. 
Pinafore, at one point the captain says "Damme, it's too bad!"  The rest of the cast makes a 
big deal of this.  It must have been quite shocking in Victorian England.

-- 
A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                           617.367.0468
 15 Court Square, Suite 210                 lawyer@attorneyross.com
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