Russian region bans swearing

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"We want Russian to remain as pure as in the great classics," said Valentina Trunova, deputy head of Belgorod's department of youth affairs.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:29 (twenty years ago)

Anther thing to help keep it pure would be to kill the jews and the handicapped. Secretly, of course.

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:33 (twenty years ago)

Seems pretty hard to enforce, but at the risk of sounding stuffy, I like the idea. I'm sooo tired of listening to other people's filthy cell-phone conversations. People feel comfortable just saying anything, especially on the phone. It's like the phone makes them forget there are other people in the world, much less the same train car. Overheard on the street the other day, a woman yelling -- YELLING -- at her boyfriend on the phone about how all he wants to do is fuck her sister, and how his dick gets all hard and etc etc and how he should go fuck himself because he's a perverted piece of shit and etc etc. that's an exteme case, but I'm also tired of just people in, like, the convenience store talking about fucking bitches and shit to their friends. It's just not civilized.

― Gold Teeth II (kenan), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:37 (twenty years ago)

Man, fuck that shit.

― Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:38 (twenty years ago)

On second thought, it's not swearing that should be banned. It's technology.

― Gold Teeth II (kenan), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:38 (twenty years ago)

I agree, it would be nice if people could be more restrained in their use of profanity in public. It's just as bad as spitting, and littering really.

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:40 (twenty years ago)

I wonder if this includes expressions like "Mother of God" and "Jesus Christ"

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:42 (twenty years ago)

People should be free to do what they like, but why do they like swearing, spitting and littering? It's something I don't particularly like about the world.

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:42 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I'm not sure what good it is to have curses reduced to being mere "earthy" intensifiers of language.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:43 (twenty years ago)

My Russian ex-flatmate was always telling me how swearing in Russian is like a million times more powerful and offensive than our pansy-ass 'fucks' and 'shits', so maybe it was really necessary.

― Michael Philip Philip Philip Annoyman (Ferg), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:43 (twenty years ago)

I sympathise with you about people not knowing how to behave in public. But with something as subjective as what can & can't be said in public, that needs to be left up to individuals' ability to understand what common perceptions of public decency are.

So the next time you see a kid misbehaving in public, scold him.

xposts

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:44 (twenty years ago)

My Russian ex-flatmate was always telling me how swearing in Russian is like a million times more powerful and offensive than our pansy-ass 'fucks' and 'shits', so maybe it was really necessary.

What, do people actually burst into flames and stuff?

― Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:47 (twenty years ago)

FUCKOV

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:48 (twenty years ago)

So the next time you see a kid misbehaving in public, scold him.

I would totally be into doing this if I had the balls. Or better yet, saying to the mom or dad, "you know, you're a really bad parent."

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:49 (twenty years ago)

Oh man, I think I'm gonna have to learn to speak Russian just for the mega-powerful cusses.

― oops (Oops), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:49 (twenty years ago)

"We want Russian to remain as pure as in the great classics," said Valentina Trunova, deputy head of Belgorod's department of youth affairs.

You mean like this, the opening to 'Anna Karenina'?!?

Happy motherfucking families are all fucking alike; every fucking unhappy family is fucking unhappy in its own motherfucking way.

Everything was in fucking confusion in the Oblonskys' house. The wife had discovered that the asshole husband was carrying on an intrigue with a cunt French girl, who had been a goddamn governess in their family, and she had announced to her asswipe husband that she could not go on living in the same motherfucking house with him. This position of affairs had now lasted three fucking days, and not only the dickwad husband and wife themselves, but all the members of their mothefucking family and household, were painfully conscious of it. Every fucking person in the house felt that there was so sense in their fucking living together, and that the stray people brought together by chance in any shitass inn had more in bloody common with one another than they, the members of the motherfucking family and household of the Oblonskys. The wife did not leave her own room, the prick husband had not been at home for three days. The children ran wild all over the house; the English bitch governess quarreled with the slag housekeeper, and wrote to a friend asking her to look the fuck out for a new situation for her; the cockfarmer man-cook had walked off the day before just at dinner time; the whore kitchen-maid, and the dick-for-brains coachman had given warning.

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:49 (twenty years ago)

Skrewya!

xpost .

Do it. Society is suffering because of bad parenting & lack of discipline.

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:50 (twenty years ago)

http://www.saskabush.com/2000/1018/images/pic_man_on_fire.jpg

― RONAN WHAT HAVE YOU DONE???? (Dan Perry), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:51 (twenty years ago)

English curse: "I hope something sexually humiliating happens to you!"

Russian curse: "I hope you die alone and in agony, and that your grave is desecrated!"

― Gold Teeth II (kenan), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:52 (twenty years ago)

I agree. Something that is nonexistant anymore is the idea of "class." Now, there is another term masquerading in the guise of "class" that basically involves expensive items and an inflated sense of self-importance.

― redfez, Friday, 1 October 2004 16:53 (twenty years ago)

He-heh! That plan to ban swearing, coming from Russia of all places, cheers me up no end, haha.
Well, back in the day at the Moscow uni dorm, my two roommates and me once tried to carry out sth similar on a minuscule scale -- just in our room. Anyone who uttered a swear word had to pay a fine of 10 to 20 kopecks, depending of the type of their offence - all variations of mother-effing were considered the worst.
So? For a long while we had lots and lots of 'beer money', ha!
Then we eventually gave up and simply swore on happily ever after.

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:54 (twenty years ago)

it's spelled "defecated", Kenan.

― oops (Oops), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:55 (twenty years ago)

Real class necessarily invovles the idea of self control and humility which is what's painfully missing in the foul mouths and pompous bearing of too many people nowadays.

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:56 (twenty years ago)

Oh man, I think I'm gonna have to learn to speak Russian just for the mega-powerful cusses.

This was my reaction too.

― Michael Philip Philip Philip Annoyman (Ferg), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:56 (twenty years ago)

my mom scolds other people's children in public all the time.

― Allyzay Science Explosion (allyzay), Friday, 1 October 2004 17:33 (twenty years ago)

And a good parent will be humbled and embarrassed that someone else had to scold their child. An arrogant & probably ineffective parent will tell her to mind her own business.

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 1 October 2004 17:36 (twenty years ago)

Didn't they try this before in France, and that's why they have sayings like "Sacre bleu!" ("Sacred blue!"). The point is that are going to swear no matter what, they might just have to make up new swears.

― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 1 October 2004 18:04 (twenty years ago)

Goldurnit, those dagnab Frogs trying to impose culture from above. Geez!

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 1 October 2004 18:06 (twenty years ago)

Garajki!

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 1 October 2004 18:07 (twenty years ago)

Um, I think the French did it like the 17th century or something. There's another French swear that substitutes "bleu" in for the bad word, but I can't think of it right now.

― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 1 October 2004 18:08 (twenty years ago)

I was merely trying to point out the profusion of substitute curse words in English (and doubtless many other languages) many of which date back to times when people could be fined for uttering them publicly.

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 1 October 2004 18:10 (twenty years ago)

Sacre fuck?

― briania (briania), Friday, 1 October 2004 18:11 (twenty years ago)

See, I don't really know anything about this one topic beyond that one factoid that stuck in my head from middle school French class.

― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 1 October 2004 18:11 (twenty years ago)

I guess it wasn't "bleu" replacing a swear word, but "Dieu," trying to avoid taking the Lord's name in vain. Hence, sacred blue instead of sacred God. And "bleu" because it sounds kind of like "dieu."

― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 1 October 2004 18:12 (twenty years ago)

It's bleu, as in sky .. sacred sky .. my heavens.

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 1 October 2004 18:14 (twenty years ago)

Mon Dieu - jesus h christ

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 1 October 2004 18:14 (twenty years ago)

During the 17th Century one could have been fined for public cursing in Britain and America too, especially during the Interregnum.

Right about the Dieu/bleu replacement, like sheesh or shoot/shit, Egad/Oh God, fuck/fudge, hell/heck.

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 1 October 2004 18:15 (twenty years ago)

Sonofagun/sonofabitch

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 1 October 2004 18:16 (twenty years ago)

It does seem that new swear words would emerge, in the whole 'darn' or 'drat' tradition, but given the age of some of our swear words it does seem that we kind of like our swear words to be obvious and noticable, rather than cryptic. I like the idea of a ban on swearing. And chewing gum, like in Singapore. (Allegedly - this could be an urban myth). You guys are so lucky I'm not in charge - I would rule you with an iron fist.

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Friday, 1 October 2004 18:17 (twenty years ago)

But people wouold be trying to make up new swear words - it would be a competition to come up with one that caught on .. That would be more annoying than hearing the outlawed words. Y'ever been around people trying to get a new catchphrase to stick?

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 1 October 2004 18:21 (twenty years ago)

Swearing, in as much as it's objectionable, is more a symptom than anything else, which is why banning it is unproductive.

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 1 October 2004 18:23 (twenty years ago)

People should be free to do what they like, but why do they like swearing, spitting and littering?

Or throwing their used gum on the ground. Every sidewalk in every city in America is covered in little black dots of dirty gum. Who are these people throwing gum on the ground? I can't ever in a million years imagine being or even befriending anyone who would be that rude to -- no, make that contemptuous of -- their fellow city dwellers. How gross can you be? And yet, there must be thousands of people who do this all the time.

― Gold Teeth II (kenan), Friday, 1 October 2004 18:26 (twenty years ago)

(then again, I smoke, so...)

― Gold Teeth II (kenan), Friday, 1 October 2004 18:27 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, you can't make a catchphrase stick really - they happen when you don't try, and the same thing happens with swearwords, maybe. Anyway, this will probably just be a fallback charge for the Russian Police when arresting someone, or if they can't make anything else stick.

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Friday, 1 October 2004 18:27 (twenty years ago)

Gold Teeth, I have wondered about that gum thing several times as I wait for the subway. I have absolutely never seen anyone ever spit or drop gum on the sidewalk and I rarely see fresh gum. It's always a nonsticky, flat, black dot. Maybe it was a 70's thing.

― redfez, Friday, 1 October 2004 21:24 (twenty years ago)

I have hired power washers to clean gum off of sidewalks before. It ain't easy. Some of that stuff could be from the 1870's.

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 1 October 2004 21:27 (twenty years ago)

cunt

― cunt, Friday, 1 October 2004 21:33 (twenty years ago)

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