Calling a Kid the "C" Word

[The Material Sheep]

I don't think the c word is that big a deal, it's not like the n word where there is a long standing history that the word brings up. A context of white oppression over a specific group of people. The c word doesn't have the historical context that gives the n word such a sting. Whore/Slut seems more applicable when people are trying to demean a woman just for being a woman.

I mean... calling a woman a **** or calling man a dick are both "sexualized/gendered insults, reducing a person to their genitals and then shaming them for what said genitals are" You call people dicks all the time bob, and I understand there is a context of men have had all the power in the past but if you have a problem with the implications of the insult be consistent at least on a logical level. Don't use the double standards are okay in an imperfect world Bob because that's just a cop out for not wanting to REALLY change the way you do things or think of the long term implications of short sighted moralizing.

Still... The onion needed to apologize because at the very end of this there is a 9 year old girl being brought into an incredibly dramatic spotlight she doesn't need to be any part of. That's the most unfortunate part about this. The girl is just a talking point for two incredibly angry sides to use towards advancing their own agenda, so I'm glad the Onion defused the situation somewhat by apologizing.

Hopefully she will be left out of the mess going forward.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

No big deal. Some dumb website calls a person a ****. Who cares. Teach kids not to give a crap about this stuff. Its not important and likely the kid never even read the original message. But people like make an issue of it and spread it across the net. I dont see why this is worth blogging.

 

[dagens24]

The joke only works BECAUSE of the word ****. If they had called her a ***** it would have been 100x worse. The obvious absurdity of it is what made the joke funny.

 

[AngryMongoose]

For my international readers, in the U.S. "the C word" (which I understand to be common to the point of casual use in the UK) is for whatever reason considered to be just about the worst anti-female insult one can utter.

Wait, what?
Maybe I'm not representative of the U.K. but I'm pretty sure it's treated as the worst swear word over here too. I'm not sure where Bob got this impression...

...oh yeah, I forgot about Jim and Yahtzee. They undermine my point somewhat.

It's probably the worst swearword here, but it's generally not used as a gendered slur. Notably here, the two biggest targets for the word "****" would be Bankers and Politicians, who are largely male. In the US, as I understand, it's considered oppressively misogynistic, rather than merely scatological, and thus considerably worse.

 

[Woodsey]

"which I understand to be common to the point of casual use in the UK"

This is bandied about an awful lot and I think it paints a slightly skewed picture. ****, to my mind, is really the last swear word. I shit and fuck all over the place, but there's definitely some thought that goes into whipping out a ****. I do get the impression that it has a far greater relation to sexism in the US, though. Generally it makes me cringe when someone says it, because it normally comes across as try-hard. Twat is much better, anyway.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Wait, what?
Maybe I'm not representative of the U.K. but I'm pretty sure it's treated as the worst swear word over here too. I'm not sure where Bob got this impression...

...oh yeah, I forgot about Jim and Yahtzee. They undermine my point somewhat.

This might also have something to do with it


Also, I would agree that while it is generally considered the most taboo swear word it doesn't have the same connotations as it does in the US, it's considered to be a stronger form of "bastard" i.e. a reprehensible person, usually male, whereas the US version is a strong form of "*****" and has misogynist overtones (from what I gather). **** isn't exactly something to say in polite company but otherwise it's not considered "wrong" for want of a better word.

 

[Lono Shrugged]

For my international readers, in the U.S. "the C word" (which I understand to be common to the point of casual use in the UK) is for whatever reason considered to be just about the worst anti-female insult one can utter.

Wait, what?
Maybe I'm not representative of the U.K. but I'm pretty sure it's treated as the worst swear word over here too. I'm not sure where Bob got this impression...

...oh yeah, I forgot about Jim and Yahtzee. They undermine my point somewhat.

I was going to say pretty much the same thing. But yeah if I was in the U.S. I'd swear my tits off and claim it was 'casual' back home. ha-ha suck on that you P.C. fuckers!

 

[Susan Arendt]

But don't we call young boys "dickheads" all the time yet **** is unacceptable?
Don't get me wrong I hate it when any person demeans someone else and think the twitter is in the wrong.
Also the fact of her age shouldn't factor into it,insulting anyone should be looked down upon.
However I do find the double standard between swears interesting.

If they had called a 9-year-old boy a "dickhead," the reaction would've been the same, I promise you.

 

[Zombie Sodomy]

While I object strongly to attaching such a negative connotation to what is a wonderful thing, not so much on a nine year old but you get my point, and to unfunny jokes; kids can kind of be cunts sometimes. Hell, I was probably a bit of a **** as a child. Some of you are probably thinking I still am. If someone wants to call a child a **** I have no problem with that, just try to do a good job.

"Lots of people. Lots of groups in this country want to tell you how to talk.
Tell you what you can't talk about. Well, sometimes they'll say, well you can talk about something but you can't joke about it.
Say you can't joke about something because it's not funny. Comedians run into that shit all the time.
Like rape. They'll say, 'you can't joke about rape. Rape's not funny.'
I say, 'fuck you, I think it's hilarious. How do you like that?'
I can prove to you that rape is funny. Picture Porky Pig raping Elmer Fudd.
See, hey why do you think they call him 'Porky,' eh? I know what you're going to say.
'Elmer was asking for it. Elmer was coming on to Porky.
Porky couldn't help himself, he got a hard-on, he got horny, he lost control, he went out of his mind.'
A lot of men talk like that. A lot of men think that way. They think it's the woman's fault.
They like to blame the rape on the woman. Say, 'she had it coming, she was wearing a short skirt.'
These guys think women ought to go to prison for being cock teasers. Don't seem fair to me.
Don't seem right, but you can joke about it. I believe you can joke about anything.
It all depends on how you construct the joke. What the exaggeration is." -George Carlin

 

[John Funk]

The difference between gendered insults directed at boys "dick" and gendered insults directed at girls "*****," the c-word... is one of social power and privilege. Yes, it's a bit of a double standard, but it's because we live in a world that establishes a double standard already.

If I fight with my girlfriend, there is not a word she could say to me that would hurt as much as me honestly calling her a *****.

 

[rancher of monsters]

But don't we call young boys "dickheads" all the time yet **** is unacceptable?
Don't get me wrong I hate it when any person demeans someone else and think the twitter is in the wrong.
Also the fact of her age shouldn't factor into it,insulting anyone should be looked down upon.
However I do find the double standard between swears interesting.

You call nine-year-olds boys dickheads?

 

[Otaku World Order]

Yeah, well that's what happens when that kind of humor goes wrong. It blows up in your face so hard that they be finding bits of your ears and nose three states over (see also Tosh, Daniel).

 

[knight steel]

But don't we call young boys "dickheads" all the time yet **** is unacceptable?
Don't get me wrong I hate it when any person demeans someone else and think the twitter is in the wrong.
Also the fact of her age shouldn't factor into it,insulting anyone should be looked down upon.
However I do find the double standard between swears interesting.

If they had called a 9-year-old boy a "dickhead," the reaction would've been the same, I promise you.

Somehow I doubt that, maybe I'm wrong and I hope I am but still, just look at these forums many a time when discussing things such as FPS multiplayer you will see people insulting the 12 year old boys that play with such rude language yet we don't even blink.

The difference between gendered insults directed at boys "dick" and gendered insults directed at girls "*****," the c-word... is one of social power and privilege. Yes, it's a bit of a double standard, but it's because we live in a world that establishes a double standard already.

If I fight with my girlfriend, there is not a word she could say to me that would hurt as much as me honestly calling her a *****.

Just because the world has established that double standard doesn't means we have to take it lying down instead we should try to change it!

But don't we call young boys "dickheads" all the time yet **** is unacceptable?
Don't get me wrong I hate it when any person demeans someone else and think the twitter is in the wrong.
Also the fact of her age shouldn't factor into it,insulting anyone should be looked down upon.
However I do find the double standard between swears interesting.

You call nine-year-olds boys dickheads?

Did you miss the bit where I said that I disliked anyone swearing at anybody else?
I was referring to other people calling boys "dickheads".

 

[2xDouble]

Doing something "ironically" is still doing it.

 

[Suicidal Zebra]

I've now read two interpretations of this joke from the Onion. In one, the Press are vile to celebrities no matter the circumstance and that is why it is a satirical joke (if not funny). In the other, the Press are saccharine in their treatment of celebrities around Oscar time, and the juxtaposition of a sweet girl with the C-Bomb is what makes it satirical. Both interpretations come from people I deem to be bright and whose opinions usually have merit.

If your satire is that difficult to parse correctly you're doing it wrong. If you're doing it wrong in the context of calling a little girl a 'C-bomb' in public you're a grade-A prat who probably needs to take a Twitter time-out. Say, for 70 years. Conservatively.

I get that on the internet it's the done thing to reflexively justify speech and the freedom thereof, no matter how abhorrent it is, on the grounds of FREEDOM! SATIRE! LULZ!, but have some fucking empathy for Christ's sake. If you're that 9-year old, attending school for the next n years, how fun will it be to have that word publicly linked to your name?

How about we keep the kids off limits until they're no longer kids. And that goes double for big names on the Internet, whose reach far exceeds their common sense.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

But don't we call young boys "dickheads" all the time yet **** is unacceptable?
Don't get me wrong I hate it when any person demeans someone else and think the twitter is in the wrong.
Also the fact of her age shouldn't factor into it,insulting anyone should be looked down upon.
However I do find the double standard between swears interesting.

You call nine-year-olds boys dickheads?

When I was 9 we were calling each other dickheads. Let's not pretend that all the kids are innocent little flowers, they know what swears are and are probably using them.

Anyways the joke required a better delivery method than twitter allows. Its generally quite difficult to convey satire, sarcasm or any sort of hidden meaning if the audience can't gauge your intentions.

Also here in my part of Scotland, the world **** is used pretty liberally. You're not gonna start shouting it in front of your boss or anything but if you're in a casual environment it's pretty much used as a comma, or as a term of endearment.

 

[rancher of monsters]

But don't we call young boys "dickheads" all the time yet **** is unacceptable?
Don't get me wrong I hate it when any person demeans someone else and think the twitter is in the wrong.
Also the fact of her age shouldn't factor into it,insulting anyone should be looked down upon.
However I do find the double standard between swears interesting.

You call nine-year-olds boys dickheads?

When I was 9 we were calling each other dickheads. Let's not pretend that all the kids are innocent little flowers, they know what swears are and are probably using them.

All kids are not innocent flowers, but that doesn't mean they've all been subjected to everything or thinks it's appropriate even if they say it. I probably didn't start using language like that until I was thirteen, and I went to school with kids who wouldn't say things like that for many more years if at all. I can tell you that if you had called me a dickhead or a **** at the age of nine you probably would have seriously hurt my feelings, I was a sensitive kid in a family that didn't tolerate swearing. Does that mean there was something wrong with me? I don't think so, because as a person, especially an adult, communicating with or talking about another person you should have the empathy to understand or at least consider their experiences and, if you're an adult talking to/about a child, you should be able to scale your language to their level.

But don't we call young boys "dickheads" all the time yet **** is unacceptable?
Don't get me wrong I hate it when any person demeans someone else and think the twitter is in the wrong.
Also the fact of her age shouldn't factor into it,insulting anyone should be looked down upon.
However I do find the double standard between swears interesting.

If they had called a 9-year-old boy a "dickhead," the reaction would've been the same, I promise you.

Somehow I doubt that, maybe I'm wrong and I hope I am but still, just look at these forums many a time when discussing things such as FPS multiplayer you will see people insulting the 12 year old boys that play with such rude language yet we don't even blink.

The difference between gendered insults directed at boys "dick" and gendered insults directed at girls "*****," the c-word... is one of social power and privilege. Yes, it's a bit of a double standard, but it's because we live in a world that establishes a double standard already.

If I fight with my girlfriend, there is not a word she could say to me that would hurt as much as me honestly calling her a *****.

Just because the world has established that double standard doesn't means we have to take it lying down instead we should try to change it!

But don't we call young boys "dickheads" all the time yet **** is unacceptable?
Don't get me wrong I hate it when any person demeans someone else and think the twitter is in the wrong.
Also the fact of her age shouldn't factor into it,insulting anyone should be looked down upon.
However I do find the double standard between swears interesting.

You call nine-year-olds boys dickheads?

Did you miss the bit where I said that I disliked anyone swearing at anybody else?
I was referring to other people calling boys "dickheads".

My mistake, though I will say this about your response to Funk. You can talk about changing the standards of words, but you also have to accept that those words have their standards for a reason. Words are meant as a vehicle to communicate ideas and concepts and they often gather widely accepted sub-concepts amongst certain cultures. You're free to argue against those sub-concepts all you want, but you also have to be able to deal with the fact that a lot of people will either not want to change those sub-concepts or misunderstand what you're saying.

 

[V8 Ninja]

Well, it looks like there's another reason to avoid engrossing myself in Twitter.

 

[Jedi-Hunter4]

For my international readers, in the U.S. "the C word" (which I understand to be common to the point of casual use in the UK) is for whatever reason considered to be just about the worst anti-female insult one can utter.

Wait, what?
Maybe I'm not representative of the U.K. but I'm pretty sure it's treated as the worst swear word over here too. I'm not sure where Bob got this impression...

...oh yeah, I forgot about Jim and Yahtzee. They undermine my point somewhat.

I think he went a bit ott saying it's near common usage. Think it's more my impression is places like the state's you will NOT hear it on the tv or in a public place. Where as in the UK it can be on tv after watershed, if you go to a busy pub, a sporting event, anywhere there is either a large gathering of lad's or alcohol being consumed you will probably hear it if you keep your ear out.

tbh I don't really get why people analyse too deeply into swear words, when I call one of my mates a "wanker" I'm not saying "oooooow look at this guy he enjoys a bit of masturbation, laugh at him for this fact!" I'm normally referring to them behaving like a prat or an idiot. To my understanding "****" is more considered worse than say "twat" which carry the same literal meaning if i'm not mistaken because of its traditional affiliation to female prostitutes.

I think all words in the English language have their place (with a few exceptions ie. racial slurs which are best left in the past). An swear words shouldn't be offensive to the ear, only offensive if directed at you. For instance if I come out of my flat an someone has smashed up my Motorcycle for no reason what so every then think I would be justified in calling them a **** in that situation lol, without if the person who did it is a woman being accused of being "sexist" and derogatory to women as a sex. Most people with any sense who use the word are not thinking that complex about it. I mean if we apply that logic no woman should be allowed to call anyone a dick.

 

[The Material Sheep]

((double post))