How does radio in 2011 deal with this?

[Richard Chonak]

I don't think it matters whether there's some linguistic pattern among 
the vulgar and polite words.  That doesn't invalidate their 
categorization as vulgar or polite.  Like all language, such 
categorization is a social convention.   In a medium of social 
communication, there is good reason to acknowledge the favored or 
disfavored status of words, much as we acknowledge the standard or 
marginal status of word spellings and pronunciations.

--RC




On 03/16/2011 12:41 AM, A Joseph Ross wrote:
> On 3/15/2011 1:06 PM, Doug Drown wrote:
>
>> The word in question, however vulgar and reprehensible, is so
>> ubiquitous nowadays that to censor it is almost tantamount to
>> pretending it doesn't exist. What's needed, perhaps, is a reasoned
>> public dialogue on the coarsening of American culture (which, in all
>> probability, will be largely ignored).
>> Sadly, yeah, I can envision the FCC waving the white flag. -Doug
>
> Oh come on, vulgar and reprehensible. "Vulgar" words are simply the
> short, Anglo-Saxon words for certain bodily functions and parts. Words
> of Latin origin with the exact same meanings are "polite." It's a
> remnant of the period following the Norman conquest of England, when the
> language of the ruling class was "polite" and the language of the common
> people was "vulgar."
>