In reference to the ongoing discussion about language we find offensive...

[porphyrian]

...what word do you find least offensive, and what word do you find most offensive? And, most importantly, why do you find those words to be the least and most offensive?

[htuttle]

1. "Belgium"

[rock]

4. Oooo. That is offensive.

(Or did you mean, it's least offensive?)

[htuttle]

5. Throughout the rest of the galaxy, it's the most unspeakably rude word there is

According to the Hitchiker's Guide...

[rock]

15. Zaphod Beelebrox!

How did I miss that?

[Howardx]

8. hehe

"the winner was undoubtedly from Mrs No-Supper-For-You from Norwood in Lancashire... Miserable Fat Belgian Bastards."

[porphyrian]

9. That precisely illustrates the relativism of offensive language.

Douglas Adams was a damned funny genius.

[treestar]

12. GD Dirty rotten Belgian Bastards

[Tyler Durden]

2. "Republican"

No brainer. LOVE to see THAT one fall out of use.

Say FUCK all you want as long as Republican disappears from the English Language.

[porphyrian]

10. That is pretty fucking offensive. - n/t

[Cerridwen]

3. Least offensive, Peace....most offensive is 2 words, "manifest destiny"

I think they are self explanatory.

[porphyrian]

11. Good choices. - n/t

[BurtWorm]

6. The: ubiquity

I'll have to get back to you on least offensive. ;)

[porphyrian]

13. I think I like "the" as least offensive, and it's probably mine.

It's so commonplace, unobtrusive and an article.

[Annces]

7. A word meant to bring harmony would be least offensive

A word meant to strike anger or negativity would be most offensive.

So one word could be used either way.

Also attitude is important. When someone says something to deliberately belittle you, it is offensive. If they say it jokingly, then it gets obfuscated.

[porphyrian]

14. You bring up another good point.

Words are simply tools for communication, symbolic representations of ideas. While some may be designed to be offensive to certain groups, there is no control over how they are used or how they are understood. It gets more complicated because, over time, the meanings and associations of a given word evolve. Thus, what may have been very offensive 100 years ago may be silly or forgotten today, or even used in an entirely different context. Some people believe we should be controlled by language. Others believe we control language. I favor the latter belief.

[Pacifist Patriot]

20. True. The word "mom" is either music to my ears or like chalk on a blackboard.

Insert child's tone and facial expression here. :)

[Bandit]

16. is..... but it depends on how you define it

:shrug: sometimes it isn't just the words but the context they are used in.

[porphyrian]

17. I'm not much of a fan of the Aristotelean essentialism of the verb "to be."

When you say someone "is" something, it implies a defining quality rather than simply an observed behavior or otherwise temporal characteristic, which in itself could simply be the misunderstanding of the observer.

[Bandit]

21. Was the pun on clinton lost on you?

:shrug:

[porphyrian]

22. Sorry, I installed PunBlocker 3.0 out of necessity two years ago. - n/t

[Pacifist Patriot]

18. LEAST: liberal MOST: Actually, it's a single letter.

W

I'd love to excise it from the alphabet, but it does come in handy in other contexts.

[porphyrian]

19. Ha! That's pretty good. - n/t

[Jeffersons Ghost]

23. "Neo-Platonic Philosophers" is offensive....

they're not new or "Neo" at all. Porphyre dates back to a hundred years or so after Plato. Then we hop all the way up to the Italian Renaissance to find PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA, saying that You have "free choice and dignity. You may fashion yourself into whatever form you choose. To you is granted the power of degrading yourself into the lower forms of life, the beasts, and to you is granted the power, contained in your intellect and judgment, to be reborn into the higher forms, the divine." This idea also applies to OPs. think about it.

[porphyrian]

26. I'm partial to the existentialists, myself.

I think it's about time to archive most, if not all, of the classicals, scavenging only the bits we know work for the toolbox. We need new ideas, not the incessant retreading of old ones.

[Swamp Rat]

24. Mere words do not offend me, but how they are said and by whom makes all the difference.

"I love words. I thank you for hearing my words. I want to tell you something about words that I uh, I think is important. I love..as I say, they're my work, they're my play, they're my passion. Words are all we have really. We have thoughts, but thoughts are fluid. You know, . And, then we assign a word to a thought, . And we're stuck with that word for that thought. So be careful with words. I like to think, yeah, the same words that hurt can heal. It's a matter of how you pick them.

There are some people that aren't into all the words. There are some people who would have you not use certain words. Yeah, there are 400,000 words in the English language, and there are seven of them that you can't say on television. What a ratio that is. 399,993 to seven. They must really be bad. They'd have to be outrageous, to be separated from a group that large. All of you over here, you seven. Bad words. That's what they told us they were, remember? 'That's a bad word.' 'Awwww.' There are no bad words. Bad thoughts. Bad Intentions. And words, you know the seven don't you? Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits, huh? Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that will infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war.

Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits, wow. Tits doesn't even belong on the list, you know. It's such a friendly sounding word. It sounds like a nickname. 'Hey, Tits, come here. Tits, meet Toots, Toots, Tits, Tits, Toots.' It sounds like a snack doesn't it? Yes, I know, it is, right. But I don't mean the sexist snack, I mean, New Nabisco Tits. The new Cheese Tits, and Corn Tits and Pizza Tits, Sesame Tits Onion Tits, Tater Tits, Yeah. Betcha can't eat just one. That's true I usually switch off . But I mean that word does not belong on the list. Actually, none of the words belong on the list, but you can understand why some of them are there. I am not completely insensitive to people's feelings. You know, I can dig why some of those words got on the list...like cocksucker and motherfucker. Those are...those are heavy-weight words. There's a lot going on there, man. Besides the literal translation and the emotional feeling. They're just busy words. There's a lot of syllables to contend with. And those K's. Those are aggressive sounds, they jump out at you. CocksuckerMotherfuckerCocksucker. It's like an assault, on you. So I can dig that.

And we mentioned shit earlier, of course. Two of the other 4-letter Anglo-Saxon words are Piss and Cunt, which go together of course. But forget about that. A little accidental humor there. Piss and Cunt. The reason Piss and Cunt are on the list is that a long time ago certain ladies said 'Those are the two I am not going to say. I don't mind Fuck and Shit, but P and C are out. P and C are out.' Which led to such stupid sentences as 'OK, you fuckers, I am going to tinkle now.' And of course the word Fuck. The word Fuck, I don't really...well, this is some more accidental humor, but I don't really want to get into that now. Because I think it takes too long. But I do mean that. I mean, I think the word fuck is an important word. It's the beginning of life, and, yet it's a word we use to hurt one other, quite often. And uh, people much wiser than I have said, I'd rather have my son watch a film with two people making love than two people trying to kill one other. And I of course agree. I wish I know who said it first, and I agree with that. But I would like to take it a step further. I would like to substitute the word fuck, for the word kill in all those movie cliches we grew up with. 'Okay Sheriff, we're gonna fuck ya now. But we're gonna fuck ya slow.' So maybe next year I'll have a whole fuckin' rap on that word. I hope so.

Uh, there are two-way words, but those are the seven you can never say on television. Under any circumstances you just can not say them ever, ever ever, not even clinically. You can not weave them in the panel with Doc and Ed and Johnny, I mean it's just impossible, forget those seven, they're out. But, there are some two-way words. There are double-meaning words. Remember the ones your giggled at in sixth grade? 'And the cock crowed three times.''Hey, the cock the cock crowed three times. It's in the bible.' There are some Two-way words, like it's okay for Curt Gowdy to say 'Roberto Clemente has two balls on him.' But he can't say, 'I think he hurt his balls on that play Tony, don't you? He's holding them. He must have hurt them by God.' And the other two-way word that goes with that one is prick. It's okay if it happens to your finger. Yes, you can prick your finger, but don't finger your prick. No, no."

[hfojvt]

27. you dirty rat

I almost died laughing.

"If you like somebody they can dump a plate of spaghetti in your lap and you will laugh. If you hate somebody, the way they hold their fork infuriates you."

There are not very many "good" ways to say the N-word, except it is okay when black people say it ending in A vs. ending it in ER. Also the line from "Catch 22" was hilarious. The Indian says
"Racial prejudice is a terrible thing. It really is. It's a terrible thing to treat a decent loyal Indian like a N, K, W or S."

Using four ethnic slurs he makes the point that often people hate prejudice that is directed at them, and yet they with blithely turn around and direct prejudice at others.

[blogslut]

25. As I have stated before

I am offended by the word "offended" and the more I see it, the more offensive it becomes.