while I'm being an argumentative crone...

[susie_flo]

...it has occurred to me recently that I often disagree (fondly) with the rants that my fiends post here and on farcebook about modern language and its usage.  Really, some of you are the most frightful curmudgeons about slang and the like.  
 
The other day I noticed that the top trend on Twatter was "Jessie J is totes amazeballs" and I'm afraid it made me chuckle with glee.  What's not to love?  [edit: I realise the answer to this question might be "Jessie J"]
  
Furthermore, I am not offended by the word "frape".  In fact the sheer, juvenile irreverence of it delights me.  I hate the way that the word 'rape' is somehow deemed fit only to be spoken in hushed tones.  It totes needs to come out of the closet... and you can rely on teenagers for that.  I find it HUGELY patronising when people claim that the casual use of the word belittles the act itself.  What utter nonsense.  You'd have to be an idiot to be morally confused by this.  (Does anybody out there find themselves belittling the 'murder' of human beings as a result of someone expressing an overt desire for a curry'?)
 
And as for swearing...  yeah, that doesn't offend me either.  It's all part of the rich tapestry that makes up our beautiful language.
 
* slopes off to read How To Lose Friends and Alienate People*
 

DISCLAIMER:  it has not escaped my notice that I have been possessed by the most tiresome, ranty, finger-wagging bore this week.  I do apologise, fiends.  I promise that normal service will be resumed imminently.  Kittehs! Gluttony! Telly!...
 
 

Comments

[lazy-hoor.livejournal.com]

Glad it's not just me who doesn't get upset about frape.

Makes me think of frappé anyway. Mmmmmmm, frappé...

(Does anybody out there find themselves belittling the 'murder' of human beings as a result of someone expressing an overt desire for a curry'?)
Haha, I've often thought that myself.

[phonemonkey.livejournal.com]

(Does anybody out there find themselves belittling the 'murder' of human beings as a result of someone expressing an overt desire for a curry'?)

Yeah, this is how I feel. I don't want rape to be something that it's taboo to even mention.

[cookwitch.livejournal.com]

Use of the word 'frape' doesn't offend me, it annoys me. It trivialises something which, whilst it shouldn't be hidden away and seen as taboo and dirty, because that places the onus on the victim and society does that enough, thanks, it also shouldn't be made into a joke either. It annoys me like the trend for 'funny' rape t-shirts does.

(Yes, I do realise that I may be having a total sense of humour failure today also.)

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about rape jokes. Attempts at making the act of rape funny = not funny at all.

But I think that 'frape' is part of a healthy trend towards de-tabooifying the word itself. When I was a younger woman the word was so taboo it was almost as if you were talking about pornography, rather than an act of violence.

[perfectlyvague.livejournal.com]

Well, quite...I often say I'm feeling murderous...you can kidnap your mates, torture a lover and strangle your brother. Normalising the word is actually quite vital in getting people to speak up about it.

[steer.livejournal.com]

It is curious that rape has got the status it does as the argument to end-all-arguments. It is such a sensitive subject that one feels one has to back away from arguing about something even if it appears quite unreasonable. You make the point about murder well. Somehow the argument "someone whose partner had been murdered would be extremely offended and upset by that" seems so much weaker than "someone who had been raped or sexually abused would be offended and upset by that".

I'm on-the-fence as regards the offensive or otherwise nature of frape. (I thought originally you'd meant frappe -- the thing is we do know some people who are so easily bothered that I could well believe that a number of people were really bothered by iced-coffee. Considering the outraged that a misplaced apostrophe can provoke in some...)

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

"Considering the outraged that a misplaced apostrophe can provoke in some..."

Hee hee, you got that right. And yes, words beginning with "R" do tend to be used as an argumentative get-out-of-jail-free card, don't they? Rape, racism, raspberry ripple... (ok, I might have made that last one up)

[ivory-goddess.livejournal.com]

Somehow the argument "someone whose partner had been murdered would be extremely offended and upset by that" seems so much weaker than "someone who had been raped or sexually abused would be offended and upset by that".

There's also the point that the chances of encountering (and accidentally offending) someone whose partner (or family member) had been murdered are much, much smaller than the chances of encountering someone who either has been the victim of, or is the partner/family member of someone who has been the victim of, rape or sexual violence*.

Personally I just want to slap people who use 'frape' as a joke.

*England & Wales figures for 2010/11: 54,982 sexual offences (both sexes), of which 14,624 are rape of a female and 20,659 are sexual assault of a female**, vs 642 murders (both sexes).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jul/14/crime-statistics-england-wales
**And that's just the reported ones.

edited for clarity

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

England and Wales figures for 2010/11: 54,982 sexual offences (both sexes), of which 14,624 are rape of a female and 20,659 are sexual assault of a female**, vs 12,987,654,210 slaps for using annoying words (both sexes).

;-)

[ivory-goddess.livejournal.com]

:)

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Oh alright. Honestly... I know it's controversial and I wouldn't want to upset someone by using the word. But I think the irreverence of it is a healthy step away from the taboo of that-which-must-not-be-mentioned. Linguistically, we Brits do tend to excel at gallows humour.

[ivory-goddess.livejournal.com]

I mostly want to slap them 'cos it's infantile rather than 'cos it's offensive.

[steer.livejournal.com]

This is a fair enough point.

The figures you give are reported crime -- obviously it's a crime which is underreported -- I would trust the BCS survey figures more which give 0.4% of all women in the UK were raped in 2010 and 2.5% sexually assaulted in some way -- a somewhat shocking figure. By contrast only 0.5% of men were sexually assaulted in some way.

However, I wonder if it is the "chance of encountering someone" which makes the offence taken greater after all:
1) Murder is a much more visible crime -- if someone is murdered everyone who knows someone who knows the victim is likely to know, the opposite is true of rape... most people are likely to not know or find out. That is, until you look at the statistics most people don't really know quite how common rape and sexual assault is.
2) Suicide is the same "order of magnitude" common -- hovering around 5,000 a year -- and certainly extremely serious. However a light-hearted reference like "I would rather open my wrists than spend another ten minutes in this meeting" would hardly be considered shocking.
3) It's not usual that something is considered less offensive because it happens to a minority.

That said, it is a very good point and may go some way to explain the disparity in "offensiveness".