California Legislature Declares "Cuss-Free" Week

shewfig writes "The California legislature, which previously tried to ban incandescent light bulbs, just added to the list of banned things ... swear words! Fortunately, the measure only applies for the first week of March, and compliance is voluntary — although, apparently, there will be a 'swear jar' in the Assembly and the Governor's mansion. No word yet on whether the Governator intends to comply."

CA must be on easy street

[Monkey-Man2000]

what a fucking waste of time

Of course

[camperdave]

Of course, this story is going to generate the largest collection of cuss-word containing posts that Slashdot has seen in months. Maybe even all but one of the posts will contain cuss-words.

working hard...or

[TornCityVenz]

Good to see that with schools going down the toilet, a budget spirally out of control and more and more companies moving out of the area...the legislature is hard at work.

Fuck Off!

[Jerrry]

Fuck that shit!

Voluntary....

[headkase]

.... For now.

Re:Fuck you, asshole

[Dark_Gravity]

How delightful. The first post to be moderated offtopic quotes cussing uttered by the governor of California in one of his better known roles, thereby making it relevant to the subject on two levels Where are my mod points when I really need them?

Re:God damn idiots

[MightyMartian]

They're doing that because they can't do anything else. Governments with their backs against the fiscal wall frequently start banning everything in sight. Banning is cheap, because inevitably they never put any money into enforcement, or in cases like cell phone driving bans, they let the cops go crazy with fines as a backdoor revenue generator. In any case, when you see a government get on the "ban this ban that" bandwagon, it means they're broke, can't actually pass any legislation that would in fact do anybody any good, but still need to justify their salaries.

Re:CA must be on easy street

[j-turkey]

Those California legislators are totally un-politically correct. This bill is insensitive to people with Tourette syndrome.

Re:May I be the first one to say

[glenn.ramsey]

Speaking as a "rampant cusser" myself, I can say that I am in now way "stickin' it to the Man" when I use curse words. Truth be told, I'll never fully understand why words get classified as curse words. They're simply another part of language used to convey extreme emotions. Sure, one could choose other words to display such emotions, but would it be as effective and why? Is it because some group of people decided that such words are offensive and this classification has been propagated throughout the generations? I say fuck that (I say that I do not agree with such arbitrary classification of said words). See the difference in emotion conveyed? Was anybody harmed by my wording? This world has become far too politically correct, and with no reason. If you can substantiate the classification of curse words with cases of where harm has come to a person because of their use, please do, I'd love to hear it.

Re:May I be the first one to say

[russotto]

And that makes it ok to deliberately offend people?

If people are offended by swear words not directed at them, the problem lies with them and not the speaker.

"That f-ing dog bit me!"

Given that the dog was not actually attempting to copulate with anything, using the expletive adds no meaning to the sentence.

Number one, it's a dog; it probably was trying to copulate with something, perhaps the leg of the victim. Number two, conveying emotion is a perfectly valid use of language.

Use of expletives as an intensifier, as in "You're a fucking moron", is also a perfectly valid use of language. If you object to deliberately offending people, it's not the expletive which is the problem.

Re:CA must be on easy street

[Jurily]

Half the words in the dictionary can "cause offense and hurt feelings or other psychological harm", if used the right way.

Re:CA must be on easy street

[tomhudson]

I can just see a few hundred robocallers swearing at california.

They wouldn't be noticed among the tens of thousands of humans calling every day to swear at the gubbimint.

Re:May I be the first one to say

[HeronBlademaster]

Respect has to start somewhere. If everyone goes by your own plan - "I'll be nice as soon as everyone else is nice" - then nobody will ever be nice.

That's a pretty simple concept. If you refuse to be a source of respect, then you're just part of the problem.

Re:May I be the first one to say

[drinkypoo]

At any rate, there's certainly no reason to be using expletives as common adjectives.

This is a patently false statement. There is an excellent reason: because I want to. Anyone who says that is insufficient can attempt aviary copulation with a ventrally rotating toroidal pastry. It's my language too, and I'll use it however I want. You're not required to listen to me, or read what I say. Surely you could use a word filter to protect your virgin eyes.

Re:Sounds OK to me

[drinkypoo]

One of my favorite definitions of courtesy is "acting so that those around you are most comfortable".

I'm most comfortable when I get to say "fuck" frequently. I toss it into my verbiage like croutons on a fat man's salad. (And I am all too-well acquainted with this portion of reality.) Where are the people concerned about my level of comfort when they try to restrict my speech? My Amygdala requires frequent exercise, and utterance of expletives is part of that.

I'm also most comfortable when I'm naked, but we won't even go into that...