swearing good

[Michael Miroslav Korcok <mk48@cornell.edu>]

I'M CALLING YOU OUT, OLD MAN.

now i know Glen's on for the summer:  Glen, please let Rodger know that
Slick thinks Rodger doesn't have SHIT for evidence.

i think the assertion that swearing somehow disadvantages women or
minorities is crap. there's no reason to believe it except the shit
people make up to further their own SMILEY FACES OF DEATH agenda.  and
here is some EVIDENCE:

Professor Vivian de Klerk explains in her study "How taboo are taboo
words for girls?" published in the December 1992 issue of Language in
Society:  

"In a study (de Klerk 1990) carried out on English-speaking South
African adolescents in order to ascertain their command and use of
slang, some interesting results emerged that demand that comfortable
theories about 'nice,' nonswearing females are long overdue for
reconsideration.  Regardless of the reasons for the current shifts in
usage (de Klerk 1991), it would seem that change is in the air.  Results
of the present article conform nicely with results obtained by Risch
(1987), based on North American data:  Females do use derogatory
language and appear to be doing so in increasing numbers.  The fact that
the same trends have been noticed in speech communities that are worlds
apart is of particular interest.  In this study, it is suggested that
the stereotype that males are typically slang users and females slang
eschewers may not be accurate and that the well-documented lexical bias
of derogatory words referring to females that exists in the English
language is not matched in mental lexicons of individual speakers, who
give evidence of a bias in favor of females.  Analysis of the data
discussed in this article reveals RESULTS THAT STRONGLY CONTRADICT THE
FACT THAT ATTITUDES FAVOR MALES, NOT FEMALES, AS USERS OF SLANG.  Such a
discrepancy between reported attitude and actual practice is an instance
of a phenomenon that is of general sociolinguistic importance."
(pp.277-278).  

The capitalization is, of course, mine.

just because you like to waltz doesn't mean we can't tango.
michael korcok

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