jleemcmahan wrote:


Perhaps the OP is inquiring about the negative reaction one typically gets with 'fuck' (or 'nigger')? I mean, it certainly is forbidden in, say, broadcast media, in major print publications, etc. It's forbidden in most homes, and certainly in most places of employment.

I think that 'fuck' is used to demonstrate that the speaker is not concerned with adherence to widely-held social rules. We know that in certain circles, cussing is fine, but you don't say, 'I feel fucking great,' when your potential boss asks you how you're doing to kick off your job interview. In the company of people you don't know, or perhaps in the company people who frown on so-called course language, you know what effect 'fuck' can have. The question that I think we're asking, here, is, 'How can a word come to have such an effect?'

jeffmcmahan wrote:
So, are you arguing the matter one way or the other?

jeffmcmahan wrote:
It seems to me that meanings are not under the control of the speaker, and that meaning is at least as much a matter for the hearer to decide as for a speaker.

jeffmcmahan wrote:
If using 'fuck' in this or that context is fine, then fine. But, as Burge pointed out, our social context has an effect upon what our words mean. If 'fuck' were uttered in a context where it would indicate rejection of the etiquette of the community, then it will likely result in negative responses.

jeffmcmahan wrote:
It Supposing that to be in some way unjust is just to assert that your idea of what it means is better than what said community takes it to mean, and of course, what a word means is not the sort of thing that can be evaluated in terms of good, better, best. Words mean just whatever it is that they happen to mean in this or that context (causal or social).

jeffmcmahan wrote:
It You are frustrated that in some contexts you're unable to use a certain linguistic tool. Go to Japan, where you're deprived all of your tools, and ask yourself how much sense your consternation makes, with regard to that community.

jeffmcmahan wrote:


Yes, well, there are some very big names in Philosophy of Language that disagree with you. Putnam's Twin Earth paper establishes that empirical facts about the world can alter your meaning (without you knowing it, or being able to change it). Kripke suggests that causal facts (not 'intention' in the sort of magic-trick way you're thinking about it) determine meaning, along with a social stage-setting that occurs when words are bapitsed. Certainly Wittgenstein takes meaning to be a function of the normative bite of social negotiation (that is, social facts have an impact upon what a word means, above and beyond the intent of a speaker). And Burge, as I mentioned, established (with more analytic 'cred' than Wittgenstein) that social setting can even force people to misrefer--that is, to say something they did not intend at all. Evans notes that where causal chains of use diverge, we can misrefer, or if the community's average idea of what a word means differs from our own, we'll misrefer.

jeffmcmahan wrote:
If you look into Quine or Grice, you'll find that speakers and listeners approach mutual understanding by negotiating with one another about which meanings are live possibilities and which aren't. (Stalnaker's propositional concept matrix is probably the best formal account of this process.) But they do not suggest that the perlocutionary effect of a given speech act could possibly come through without the active participation of the listener, in working to get to a point where the speaker can be properly (that is, conscientiously) interpreted. Part of the process is making clear to the speaker that different ways of expressing this or that are more effective, and the speaker is to engage in what Austin calls a "repairing" speech act. This is the generally adopted view (to my knowledge) of what goes on when a speaker is not understood. It goes down as a "misfire" if the reparative act doesn't succeed.

jeffmcmahan wrote:
What you're advocating is that everyone just do away with their meaning of the word, and adopt yours instead, because you like your meaning better. This is tantamount to arguing that Japanese people ought to speak English because you prefer that they do.

jeffmcmahan wrote:
No one was arguing that there wouldn't be a difference. But using the word 'fuck' at all in the presence of certain people communicates a rejection of social etiquette. Saying, "I fucking love social etiquette" is as much (maybe more) a rejection of social etiquette as is, "I hate social etiquette." That someone would be offended does not in any way require that they have mistaken the context. If the audience was offended, then it was the speaker that was mistaken.

More later.

jeffmcmahan wrote:
China? No. I am interested to hear where this leads, though.

jeffmcmahan wrote:
The point is, for "them," the use of the word at all is an offensive act. It makes no difference how you couch the word in gentle, or positive contexts. This is how 'fuck' is used is their community(s)--its use, in whatever context, signifies a certain coarseness about communication in their eyes. For them to take you as innoffensive, they would have to dissociate this meaning from the word, which means altering the customs surrounding its use. Unless your community is only a few people, that project is unfeasible. Now, if you're simply saying that "some day it might be the case that..." then I am not about to attempt any argument (against what isn't itself an argument).

The trouble with what I think you are saying is that you're suggesting that your customary means of communication are to be preferred over theirs ("Use my meaning, not yours."). Given that the symbols we use to communicate are arbitrary, that seems a pretty odd point of view. That 'fuck' means to one person something negative is not the sort of fact that should be evaluated in terms of good or bad, better or worse.

Baudin wrote:
uhhh......I really hope that just because a collective think a word is offencive we should lie down and take it. A word is but a word, an association is something totally different, "Words are the things we use to express ourselves." (Bill Hicks)

Expressing ourselves is what we humans do, even the people saying "You can't say fuck because it's offencive" use the word to make a point. Whether their use of the word is better then mine is but a ethical question.

So no, I do not think it is a forbidden word, it's meaning is just too unclear to use in uncertain situations, situations where the outcome is not yet obvious.

jeffmcmahan wrote:


"...an association is something totally different..." Are you suggesting that connotation is not part of meaning? Do you take meaning to be denotation only? I am interested to hear what you may mean by this. On the one hand, you're pushing a Speech Act theorist's verbiage, but you're acting as though communities' habits of use are to be flippantly disregarded as "unjust" where you would like to use it differently. I don't see how these two positions can be reconciled; Speech Act Theory birthed the idea that the community's historical patterns of use determine for a given speaker the eligibility of a word for this or that particular use.

As things stand, John McCain can't use the sentence, "Fucking vote for me, niggers!" to get the African American vote. There is a really good reason for this. It would not jive with historical patterns of use--that is to say, it would be really offensive to much of the community, and thus not serve John McCain's ends. Similarly, the phrase, "Ich möchte ein Bier" won't get you a beer in a New York pub, since there is no pattern of use established for this sentence, in this community of speakers--its in German. You therefore cannot use it, though you might like to (say, if you spoke German better than you speak English).

In the case of 'fuck,' you cannot use it to your desired ends (unless those include offending people) in a community of people liable to be offended by the word. That is not a fact to be evaluated ethically. It is a matter of historical patterns of use; a factual matter. The notion that some given community's words ought to mean "this" instead of "that" is totally inane. What a word means is arbitrary.



Sigh. I assume you to mean something like, "Even while I'm in the company of people who are likely to be offended by it, I will use the word 'fuck' just as if I were in the company of people who wouldn't be." This is (I presume) because you think that people who take 'fuck' to be inoffensive are somehow the better of the two linguistic communities. That, itself, is absurd. But, putting that aside, consider that when using the word in the company of the conservative anti-effs, you do offend them. Your acting as though they were the sort of community you'd like them to be has no effect upon them, and your intent (unless it was merely to offend) is never in fact realized.

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The point is that it is stupid to think of this question in terms of what 'fuck' should or shouldn't mean. It is exactly the same thing to argue that "equals" should be symbolized by '~' instead of '='. It's a matter of social history; and again, it is ARBITRARY. What you're doing is clinging to your uses because you think they're somehow better, when in fact "better" here, doesn't even make any sense.

I still feel that in the case I mentioned a couple of posts ago, they don't deserve my restriction of language...

I don't believe a single word can (or should) have that power.

This discussion is a bit moot though. If you would have stated it like this: "Is fuck a forbidden word in certain communities in certain situations in a certain time." then I would say yes!

I really believe that communities habits should always be looked at crittically.

So, if [M]r. McCain was know[n] as the greatest fighter for black rights? Could he use it then? I'd like to think he could.

I'm trying to take human nature out of the equa[t]ion. I know this can never be done, but would the world not b[e] a happier place if it were possible?

It seems to me that what you want to say should always have a higher priority then how you say it.