From: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Subject: When Is Bad Language Offensive?
Organization: Clark University
Date: 16 DEC 92 02:22:04 GMT

After all the bad words that have been bouncing around in
rec.arts.books lately, I started thinking about profanity -- who
uses it, and under what circumstances, and why -- and these two
different examples came to mind.

From THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES, by Tom Wolfe:

     He turned the corner, and there it was:  the bond trading room
     of Pierce & Pierce.  It was a vast space, perhaps sixty by
     eighty feet... an oppressive place with a ferocious glare,
     writhing silhouettes, and the roar... The writhing silhouettes
     were the arms and torsos of young men, few of them older than
     forty.  They had their suit jackets off.  They were moving
     about in an agitated manner and sweating early in the morning
     and shouting, which created the roar.  It was the sound of
     well-educated young white men baying for money on the bond
     market.

     "Pick up the fucking phone, please!" a chubby, pink-faced
     member of the Harvard Class of 1976 screamed at someone two
     rows of desks away... "I said please pick up the fucking
     phone!  I mean holy shit!"...

     A member of the Yale Class of 1973 with a neck that seemed to
     protrude twelve inches out of his shirt stared at a screen and
     screamed over the telephone at a broker in Paris: "If you   
     can't see the fucking screen... Oh, for Christ's sake, Jean-
     Pierre, that's the *buyer's* five million! The *buyer's*!   
     Nothing further's coming in!"

     Then he covered the telephone with his hand and looked      
     straight up at the ceiling and said out loud to no one, except
     Mammon, "The frogs!  The fucking frogs!"...

     "Jesus Christ, what's going on?"

     "I don't fucking believe this!"

     "Holy fucking shit!" shouted the Yale men and the Harvard men
     and the Stanford men.  "Ho-lee fucking shit."

     How these sons of the great universities, these legatees of
     Jefferson, Emerson, Thoreau, William James, Frederick Jackson
     Turner, William Lyons Phelps, Samuel Flagg Bemis, and the
     other three-name giants of American scholarship -- how these
     inheritors of both the _lux_ and the _veritas_ now flocked to
     Wall Street and the bond trading room of Pierce & Pierce!

                              *  *  *

From TEMPORARY INSANITY, by Jay Johnstone: transcript of a locker-
room interview with Lee Elia, Chicago Cubs manager, on April 12,
1983, after his team lost 4-3 to the Dodgers (for the 14th loss in
19 games) and was booed by the hometown fans.


     Fuck those fuckin' fans who come out here and say they're Cub
     fans that are supposed to be behind you, rippin' every fuckin'
     thing that you do.  I'll tell you one fuckin' thing, I hope we
     get fuckin' hotter than shit, just to stuff it up them 3,000
     fuckin' people that show up every fuckin' day, because if
     they're real Chicago fuckin' fans, they can kiss my fuckin'
     ass right downtown and PRINT IT.

     They're really, really behind you around here... my fuckin'
     ass.  What the fuck am I supposed to do, go out there and let
     my fuckin' players get destroyed every day and be quiet about
     it?  For the fuckin' nickel-dime people who turn up?  The
     motherfuckers don't even work.  That's why they're out at the
     fuckin' game.  They oughta go out and get a fuckin' job and
     find out what it's like to go out and earn a fuckin' living. 
     Eighty-five percent of the fuckin' world is working.  The
     other 15 percent come out here.  A fuckin' playground for the
     cocksuckers.  Rip *them* motherfuckers.  Rip them fuckin'
     cocksuckers like the fuckin' players.  We got guys bustin'
     their fuckin' ass, and them fuckin' people boo.  And that's
     the Cubs?  My fuckin' ass.  They talk about the great fuckin'
     support the players get around here.  I haven't seen it this
     fuckin' year.  Everybody associated with this organization
     have been winners their whole fuckin' life.  Everybody.  And
     the credit is not given in that respect.

     Alright, they don't show because we're 5 and 14... and
     unfortunately, that's the criteria of them dumb 15
     motherfuckin' percent that come out to day baseball.  The
     other 85 percent are earning a living.  I tell you, it'll take
     more than a 5 and 12 or 5 and 14 to destroy the makeup of this
     club.  I guarantee you that.  There's some fuckin' pros out
     there that wanna win.  But you're stuck in a fuckin' stigma of
     the fuckin' Dodgers and the Phillies and the Cardinals and all
     that cheap shit.  It's unbelievable.  It really is.  It's a 
     disheartening fuckin' situation we're in right now.  Anybody
     who was associated with the Cub organization four or five
     years ago that came back and sees the multitude of progress
     that's been made will understand that if they're baseball
     people, that 5 and 14 doesn't negate all that work.  We got
     143 fuckin' games left.

     What I'm tryin' to say is don't rip them fuckin' guys out
     there.  Rip me.  If you wanna rip somebody, rip my fuckin'
     ass.  But don't rip them fuckin' guys cause they're givin'
     everything they can give.  And right now they're tryin' to do
     more than God gave 'em, and that's why we make the simple
     mistakes.  That's exactly why.

                              *  *  *

Ah, language.

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu