Re: OT: Profanity in the workplace

[Ned Bedinger <doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com>]

Kat Kuvinka wrote:
> 
> 
> One guy here says it all the time (he is Russian
>  
> 
> So our VP/Development says it the other day (he is German
>
> My manager (good ole American)  made some comment about how
> I am picking and choosing my profanity. 
>  


This may be hard to reconcile with your beliefs, but I feel certain that
the name taken in vain in virtually all modern American speech would not
be recognized or proscribed by the God of the Old Testament, whose name
was definitely not God in any case. We've tried and tried to figure out
what we think about this, but we're still stuck with the God/god
dichotomy, which seems much too fiddly. Would God split hairs this way?

I think the price of being the exporter of mass culture and language to
the world is, in small part, that we're going to be inundated with
endless empty renditions of how we act and speak.  Perhaps your foreign
co-workers have struggled to overcome their own inhibitions in order to
cuss like an American tycoon in  the boardroom, or a sportsfan, or a
gangsta, or even a teen!

Mass media is full of American vernacular, and that represents a LOT of
traffic and momentum that doesn't stop for pedestrians. Don't get
yourself run over. Just watch closely and observe how unlike your
beliefs the thing they're saying is.

Have fun,

Ned Bedinger
doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com
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