At 11:25 AM 7/5/98 -0700, Michael Price wrote:

>But what is "such language"? I reproduced a string of "such language" that
>fifty years ago at least one of them, the word 'hell', could have earned me
>bitter opprobrium for use in public. Now they're just mild euphemisms, and
>such a reaction would be risible.

>So, how to rank and who's to judge? What are the qualifications for judging?
>What mechanisms for banning? What period to set to revisit words for their
>acceptability? Penalties?

Obviously, we'd need to start by banishing the use of offensive genus
names, like Turdus.

We could all use a bunch of English ones which aren't familiar to most
Americans, perhaps...

"bugger off", instead of our favorite phrase, for instance. "bloody
twitchers". "sod you". "that bloddy sod, Newt Gringrich". Etc.

Help me here, Michael :)

Of course, we could always censor swearing *unless* it appears
in limerick form...or did the effort to ban limericks succeed?

I forget.

I guess the fact that I'm refusing to take all this serious means I'm
going to post what I damn well please. I doubt that's news to many.


- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza at pacifier.com>
Nature photos, on-line guides, and other goodies at
http://donb.photo.net