What is a swear? // October 29, 2009

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This question has been on my mind all day, and I feel like I just need to blog about it. I never really have used my blog to write about things like this. The reason for this is because I was on my radio show today, and my friend and I ran into a few troubles regarding swears. Well, the first thing that happened was a few kids thought they were funny and kept calling our show acting as people we knew, and convincing us to put them on air, and swearing repeatedly.

But that’s beside the issue. What I really wanted to talk about was what defines a swear? Is it the history of the words? The context it is used in? Or the way it was expressed? It doesn’t make sense to me. The FCC doesn’t allow a certain list of words on the radio, but what makes a word acceptable, and inappropriate? Where is the line drawn? For example, the word ass. Ass may be viewed as a swear, but it literally is just a donkey.

I was playing the song Empire State of Mind on the show, and all of the sudden, the N bomb popped up. I agree that the word isn’t exactly okay, but what exactly makes it a swear? I am currently reading Frederick Dougless, and I have been hearing the word a lot recently. I agree that it is a terrible word, with terrible history, but what makes it unacceptable? I am Jewish, and I almost feel that the word Jew is a bit edgy. I just don’t understand sometimes how words can be seen as not okay to say.

I remember, I was outside Grant Park over the summer entering Lollapalooza for the second day. And right outside the entrance, there were two people with big signs, and a megaphone, and they were saying we were all going to hell, and god hates our music. This was mostly because of the fact that Tool was headlining that day, but still, that was okay? They were telling my that if I did not turn to Jesus, I was going to burn in hell. It just doesn’t make sense to me.