F*ck is a bad word

Of course the question my opponent is probably going to ask is “what makes a word really “bad”? It can’t be the arbitrary definitions we assign to words and slap in a bound bundle of papers that we call a “dictionary”. But what is it? I’ll be defending that it’s a communally-accepted term that has negative implications, thus making it a “bad” word. But just what is communication then? Dictionary. com defines it as “the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs. ”(1) Sounds pretty simple, right? It’s actually a intricate system relying on the ability to send and receive messages from other people, as well as for the messages you send to be understood by the person receiving your message. This is what’s known as the communication process(2). Miscommunications happen when a message is sent but not properly understood. This can happen for a number of reasons, such as speaking in different languages, or through the use of things like sarcasm. Among these is saying a word and meaning something that isn’t understood by the average person. For example, if I’m talking to a person and say “I want some ice”, but by ice I mean “not ice”, the person who I’m talking to will inevitably get confused, leading to miscommunication. That’s ultimately what a dictionary is; it’s a book that contains the socially accepted meaning for words so that we can communicate efficiently and effectively. This is what the framework for the debate ought to be: the ability to effectively communicate with the society around you is something that ought to be valued above all else. The main reason you look to this as the way you evaluate the round is without it there’s no way to actually communicate with anyone. Without the ability to communicate with the society around you, governments would collapse in on themselves and chaos would erupt on a global scale. This point is pretty intuitive so I don’t expect a lot of contest to come here. The best way to effectively communicate with society is through respecting social norms. Think back to the ice example. If I use a definition for a word that isn’t socially accepted, the person I’m taking to probably isn’t going to have a clue what I’m trying to say. This leads to ineffective communication which would violate the framework. And, this framework supercedes the definition debate. It doesn’t matter if I define a word any way I want to, if society considers a word to be a certain way, for all practical purposes in communication it’s how society defines it. This means that if I’m winning on my framework, his definition of “bad” doesn’t really matter (and, just to cover all my bases since I think he’s going to argue that it violates the rules, the framework doesn’t disagree with your definition, rather chooses to work around it, which doesn’t violate the round one rules. ) And, intentions don’t really matter in regards to social norms since it’s kind of hard to communicate intentions (I’m looking at you, sarcastic responses). The fact that people can misinterpret sarcastic remarks to be not sarcastic shows that simply meaning one thing doesn’t guarantee your intentions will come across. Moreover, it doesn’t really matter what a word ought to mean because that’s outside the scope of the resolution. All that the resolution asks for us is to say if f*ck is a bad word, not whether it ought to be a bad word. Furthermore, to say that f*ck ought not be a bad word would imply that it currently is a bad word, which would be conceding the debate. So at this point, the debate is simple. All I need to do is prove that f*ck is considered a bad word by society and I’ve proven that it’s a bad word. So hence, my main argument: f*ck is considered a bad word by society(3)(4)(5)(6). As such, the resolution is affirmed. Sources: (1) - . http://dictionary.reference.com... (2) - . http://education-portal.com... (3) - . http://www.noswearing.com... (4) - . http://en.wiktionary.org... (5) - . http://www.slate.com... (6) - . http://www.urbandictionary.com...