Respectful Insolence: How much cussing happens on this blog?

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How much cussing happens on this blog?

Category: Blogging • Humor
Posted on: March 30, 2008 9:36 AM, by Orac

I'm actually surprised it's that high:

Created by OnePlusYou - Free Online Dating

Must be some of the commenters. I have been known on occasion to use the word "bullshit" with reference to, for example, David Kirby, but I really do try to keep this blog fairly clean as far as cussing goes.

Comments

I believe that it's an average of all blogs at Sb since you get the same number for all. When I go back to my old home at Blogger, I get 2.3%.

Posted by: Abel Pharmboy | March 30, 2008 10:19 AM

Cussing can be your friend! In the first episode of Penn & Teller's Bulls**t, Penn explained it. He said if he calls someone a quack or a fraud, he could spend the rest of his life in court, defending that claim; but he can call someone an a**hole with impunity. Last year, PZ Myers found out that he is, indeed, able to call someone a "crackpot" without legal repercussions.

Posted by: Joe | March 30, 2008 10:24 AM

Let me know if you need any help with this. You know where to find me.

Posted by: PhysioProf | March 30, 2008 12:21 PM

Orac, why the f**k didn't you take the Blog Verbosity test?

Posted by: Bob O'H | March 30, 2008 12:49 PM

Good Grief!! With the outrageous woo-woo cr*p you cover weekly it's amazing you can keep calm. One would expect the CussOMeter to be pegging the needle...

Posted by: Scote | March 30, 2008 1:54 PM

Hmm...I wonder if this is for real or if it is just a sham?

I ran PZ's blog and got the exact same 4.3 result. That seemed odd, so I ran the Intersection's "PZ Myers, Mind Your Manners" URL--which is full of, er, "frank discussion" and got the same 4.3 percent. Perhaps it just reads the root URL (which wouldn't be very smart since so many blogs don't have their own domain.) I did manage to enter a non-SB URL that finally got the needle to move, but it is clear this thing is not very particular or granular.

Posted by: Scote | March 30, 2008 2:09 PM

Um, I'm pretty sure I'm more vulgar than you, and I got 2.6%.

Posted by: Blake Stacey | March 30, 2008 2:24 PM

Cursing? Here's a curse for you: May the bird of paradise nest in your sock drawer.

Posted by: Bill the Cat | March 30, 2008 2:35 PM

Yeah, the thing is broken. Balloon Juice got 0%, and John Cole swears like a [redacted for ScienceBlogs' tender ears] sailor.

It also doesn't seem to distinguish between vulgar and non-vulgar discussions of potentially vulgar topics, ie, sex; Pandagon got 53% or so.

Posted by: ithaqua | March 30, 2008 3:04 PM

Oh, and the World Net Daily (loony right-wing site) got 0.2%. Which makes them approximately 2100% more well-mannered than the dirty-mouthed liberals here at ScienceBlogs. Shame on us :P

Posted by: ithaqua | March 30, 2008 3:08 PM

Here's what always puzzles me: why is it bad to say "fuck" but OK to say 'fudge'?? Or what about if I say "jeeeze" instead of "jesus psychopathic christ"? If we just ranted like this:
g_d d_mn I f_cking h8 the f_cking a_swipe motherf_cking dic_less a_sholes who worry about my co_ks_cking language!
it's OK?

I remember when I was a kid National Lampoon did an episode in which all the dirty words where replaced with the names of Supreme Court Justices. It was pretty funny.

Using "Ashcroft" for just about any swear word is not bad, either:
Ashcroft it all! I Ashcrofting hate the Ashcrofter Ashcroft-wiping motherAshcrofting Ashcroft-less Ashcroftholes who worry about my Ashcrofting language!

Posted by: Marcus Ranum | March 30, 2008 5:13 PM

Using cusswords can be an art form, but I find I get more satisfaction from excoriating those worthy of it without using those words. For me, it's more fun to creatively blast some foul-brained half-wit than to simply throw a few f-bombs.
(how did a simple anglo-saxon expression concerning fornication become known as a bomb ? )

Posted by: DLC | March 30, 2008 7:51 PM

I agree - the level of insult here is higher than merely cussing.

Posted by: AnnR | March 30, 2008 8:14 PM

"an execrable crap-fest called Expelled!"

I like it, but you will need 24 straight cuss free posts to keep your average from rising.

Posted by: Dr X | March 30, 2008 10:17 PM

Just hold your goddam keystrokes you stupid motherf.....!

By the way, nothing was said about National Doctors day today.
Does that include dentist's and chiropractors?

Posted by: Uncle Dave | March 30, 2008 11:15 PM

You realize this is just a scam to raise the google profile of OnePlusYou, right? That is, by posting the link above, you help to push their site higher when someone searches for "free online dating". Kinda like "cash advance" and the blog readability test of last year. I highly doubt this test did anything but spit out an image.

Skepticism, people: it's not just for woo!

Posted by: Cain | March 31, 2008 2:07 AM

The use of profanity everywhere has been on the rise for many years now. This is due, at least in part, to the anonymity of those who choose to use profane language (internet forums and blogs), in part to the abundance of profanity in movies and stand-up comedies and in part to the overall poor English vocabulary of those who find it necessary to insert cuss words to express their emotions. One of the responders here, a blogger in his own right (Physiopof) is actually very proud of his foulmouth. Personally, I find it distracting and annoying to read posts on a serious subject matter laced with profanity. This is a trend that will bring even faster deterioration to the already deteriorated English language.

Posted by: S. Rivlin | March 31, 2008 12:18 PM

Or is it just that profanity gets written down now? And how can it be harmful to be honest about the way people really do speak? In Hamlet and Henry IV, Part Two, Shakespeare punned on cunt and fuck respectively, and you can be sure his audience understood, but England did not implode, nor did its language vanish from the Earth.

Posted by: Blake Stacey | March 31, 2008 12:28 PM

Sorry Blake, there's still a huge gap between the English of Shakespeare and the trash spoken by the punks and rappers on America's streets, which seems to be the language everyone now-a-day tries so hard to imitate. Listening to our president, whose English is as bad as his Spanish and to higher-ups' TV and radio speeches and interviews, as they utter multiple "you know", "basically", "I mean" etc, would make Shakespeare turn in his grave.

Posted by: S. Rivlin | March 31, 2008 2:09 PM

I plugged PZ Myers' and Ed Brayton's URLs into that thing, and both of them got the same result as yours. Ed and PZ say "bullshit", "fuckwit" and "asshole" pretty frequently in their posts, and their readers tend to cuss more often than Respectful Insolence readers, so I seriously doubt the level of swearing at Dispatches or Pharyngula is the same as here. You also get the same result for plugging in the www.scienceblogs.com url by itself.

Posted by: Wes | March 31, 2008 2:46 PM

I'm not trying to claim that Dubya is as eloquent as Shakespeare, just that if the Elizabethan audience didn't swear and curse, the plays wouldn't contain the language that they do. The difference now is that the written record is more complete. My point is that profanity has always been with us, that people have always been steeped in vice (linguistic or otherwise), and that despite millennia of vulgarity — I mean, lesbian pornography and advertisements for prostitutes have been dug up from Pompeii — we're still here. Great poetry still gets written. The global conversation still shakes with ideas.

Far be it for me to consider this grounds for cautious optimism.

Posted by: Blake Stacey | April 1, 2008 1:32 PM

I put fark.com into this and got...

...drumroll...

0%.

Those who frequent Fark will realize that this is, as they say on Fark, "bullshiat."

Posted by: Ray C. | April 1, 2008 2:02 PM