Fri, 02 Mar 2007 23:18:00
Lefty bloggers swear more than righty bloggers. No shit?
I suppose this is something to talk about.
But how different are the Rightosphere and Leftosphere when it comes to “dirty” language? Which side produces the most profanity-laced diatribes? Via Instapundit, I happened upon this interesting challenge from InstaPunk:
I propose an exercise to be performed by those who have the software and expertise to carry it out. The exercise is this: Search six months’ worth of content, posts and comments, of the 20 most popular blogs on the right and the left. The search criteria are George Carlin’s infamous ‘7 Dirty Words.’ [Click this link for the list of expletives.]And this is what I found, using what I deemed—through a mix of TTLB and 2006’s Weblog Award lists—to be the 18 biggest Lefty blogs, and 22 biggest Righty blogs. I couldn’t account for the 6-month time period, and I even gave the Lefty blogs a 4 blog advantage. But it didn’t make much of a difference.
So how much more does the Left use Carlin’s “seven words” versus the Right? According to my calculations, try somewhere in the range of 18-to-1.
Here’s what I wanna know:
Who gives a flying fuck at a rolling goddamned doughnut? I will admit to being curious about my own stats, though. These are the results of keyword searches of just posts and titles, not comments. I actually thought everything would be worse.
Keywords: shit Total Search Results: 223
Keywords: piss Total Search Results: 81
Keywords: fuck Total Search Results: 653
Keywords: cunt Total Search Results: 3
Keywords: cocksucker Total Search Results: 3
Keywords: motherfucker Total Search Results: 8
Keywords: tits Total Search Results: 5
Well, I think we have a winner. ;) Good thing that dude didn’t use my site - I’d fuck me up some bell curve. As for the “swearing means you don’t have the vocabulary to express yourself” argument...I dealt with that in 2004.
I’ll be honest, I find blogs that have the cursing rule to be a little...pretentious, I guess, although that isn’t *quite* the right word. Allow me to elaborate. I’m of the Carlin school. “Curse” words are just that...words. Gosh-darned means precisely the same thing as the “curse” equivalent. Pretending to dress up expletives in “polite” speech is, to my mind, putting on airs.
400 years ago, “nothing” was slang for a woman’s privates. The whole world knew you were cursing when you said it, and one RARELY said it in mixed company until Shakespeare made a mockery of the practice with the title of one of his plays. Fast-forward to South Park using the four-letter colloquialism for feces 168 or so times in a single episode to demonstrate the stupidity of being terrified of hearing four simple little letters in a particular order…
And as a prime example of why I find the concept pretentious, look how far out of my way I had to go in that sentence just to avoid typing something that rhymes with ti..I mean sit. “The four-letter colloquialism for feces” instead of four simple letters. Silliness. It’s so much verbosity, seemingly for it’s own sake, or existing just so I can use the word “colloquialism” in a sentence. That and $5.65 will get me a grande frappi-something at Starbucks.
BUT...that having been said!
A blog is YOUR house. Your digital living room, so to speak. I would not come into your home and wipe my...uhh...backside...with your hand towels. I would not come to your house and feel up your wife, unless it was that kind of party. ;) In short, I would, as a guest, respect your wishes in how to conduct myself. Period. If a blog has a loose, free-for-all flow here, I’ll be all about the dirty dirty, yo. Some don’t, and I respect that because it’s not my joint.
That respect, more so than any enforced civility, is what we need to see more of. I don’t mean respecting each other in some Oprah encounter group “Your opinion is perfect, Johnny, and you’re perfect, now let’s hug” nonsense. I mean the simple respect of knowing you are in another man’s home, and acting according to the rules that man (or woman) sets down.
Posted by JimK at 11:18 PM on March 02, 2007
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Categories: The Blogosphere, Things To Ponder
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Technorati: language blogs blogging
Comments:
#2 Posted by Buzzion 
on 03/03 at 08:09 AM -
Well, I think we have a winner. ;) Good thing that dude didn’t use my site - I’d fuck me up some bell curve. As for the “swearing means you don’t have the vocabulary to express yourself” argument...I dealt with that in 2004.
Actually you wouldn’t. At the most you might have taken down their ratio by 1 or 2 numbers. I think part of the point was how the left likes to consider themselves sophisticated, cultured, and capable of great speech, and the right are just uncultured vulgar morons who can’t make an argument without swearing. One of those curious little truths that people don’t know.
#3 Posted by Mazz on 03/03 at 02:01 PM -
I fuckin want those motherfuckin curse words of of my motherfuckin blogs, motherfucker! Say Fuck again! Say Fuck again!!
#4 Posted by Drumwaster on 03/03 at 05:45 PM -
Can you imagine how it would have changed TV catchphrases over the years if they could say those Seven Words?
“What the fuck you tawkin’ ‘bout, Willis?”
“Where’s the fucking beef?”
“To the fucking moon, Alice...”
“You better explain this shit, Lucy...”
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#1 Posted by Drumwaster
on 03/03 at 02:41 AM -
No fuckin’ shit. What’s a muhfukker gots to do to get some muhfukkin’ props ‘round here?
Shi-i-i-i-it.