blogfight!

It needs to be said, so I'll say it:
Any chance they can get Nisbet to follow them over there?
Germans like to use comparisons to animals as insults, so schwein or hund is appropriate if you feel the need.

Several thoughts:

(1) I love the Intersection and read it all the time, but what is your definition of being one "of the top ranked science blogs", and what evidence is there that they were?

(2) Are there languages that do not use sexual references for cursing at all? If so, I am fascinated to know what they are.

(3) Bad Astronomy posts cheesecake nudes? Links please?

DOC: I suggest you let Physioprof do his own labor for the present inquisition and reign of harassment (of Phil).

I'd just like to add two sticks to the fire: First, I think it is utterly inappropriate for people to be mad at Phil for the particular way he handled the comments. This is a blogger's choice, what one moderates or now, how one responds to any particular comment. A blogger may well chose to simply ignore the comments on a particular post. Let's not see the sudden generation of rules (because such a rule might be a suddenly available tool for Physiprof or whomever to get their rocks off with) as to how a blogger must handle comments. With respect to Physiprof's rule that regular profanity as he uses it is OK if misogynist comments are OK, this is mere sophistry. Phil can't have a misogynist comment filter. They don't exist. He's given reasons why he filters the comments (based on profanity) and they are valid reasons. And he does not need reasons.

Second, I was shocked and amazed to see this huge display of uppsettitude over these remarks, not because the remarks did not deserve attention, but rather, because this level of attention is obviously serving some other purpose. I think it rather paternalistic of physioprof to think that Sheril needs him to defend her honor. Give me a freakin' break.

As you know Greg, this has nothing to do with rules. You throw that out there every time you don't like what someone has to say about something you or someone you want to suck up to says or does.

You, Phil Plait, and everyone else on the Internet are free to say and do whatever the fuck they want. And others are free to analyze and criticize those statements and actions. Your bullshit in this regard is transparent.

[part of comment deleted by request - ed.]

My sense is that SEED and Discovery are using different models for their blogfarms, SEED has PZ as their big pull, and then recruits a large group of heterogenous blogs both to pull in the targeted demographics, and playing the odds - some of them will have traffic spikes at any given time, and of course to find another PZ or two.
Discovery is poaching already established blogs with high readership and more general audience demographics - different business model, they don't seem to have a "farm team", they just go and recruit from the field.

Be interesting to see if SEED's business model survives the current crunch, Discovery ought to be able to ride it out unless they over leveraged to expand.

Icelandic in particular, and to some extent the other nordic languages (don't know any finnish so can't say) have more scatological and theological cursing then sexual.
In fact until the recent creeping anglicization of Icelandic slang a teenager could be hard pressed to come up with a emphatic enough a sexual curse. Nowadays I gather it is just Fokk this and Fokker that.

I see no point in "hiding" the Skepchick and Skepdude calendars
http://skepchick.org/blog/?page_id=1493/ for 2009
they are fundraisers in a worth cause, and Phil was happy to give them free plugs with free samples.
It probably also helped pull in more teen boy readers to have a bit of cheesecake once a year.

Hm,
Sheril can defend herself, or stay above the fray; it stirs up traffic eitherway, and getting into spats with blogbrethren is generally inadvisable, at least within the collectives...

'course there's two kinds to sciencebloggers - those who are intrigued by whether Discoverblogs can offer a better deal, and those who'd rather go back to blogspot than join them...

I actually understand why Phil would automoderate "fucks", his target demographic firmly straddles the K-12 and teenboy crowd who are likely to have filters on their web interfaces, and he does not want his site autodropped.
But, since that is a concern, if he wants to be consistent, he should maybe consider what other "corrupting content" comes through.

And if people want to engage in public "she's hawt" comments, well then others are open to commenting in turn, right? That is the point of comments, to provide for discourse and feedback, not just drooling fanboy praise.

Not that I EVER get drooling fanboy praise... sigh.

But, apart from the blog politics and demographic tussles, there is a serious underlying point, of insidious sexism undermining femal scientists, and shallow people, men usually, judging by appearances.

Second, I was shocked and amazed to see this huge display of uppsettitude over these remarks, not because the remarks did not deserve attention, but rather, because this level of attention is obviously serving some other purpose.

HA HA HA!!!! Gimme a "G"!

What purpose is that? And so you hear voices in your head ALL the time Laden?

With regard to swearing in Finnish, I can with no small amount of confidence say that the various secretions and excretions of the body do feature prominently, especially in personally aggressive usage. In the language of adolescents the sexual profanities have for a good while now been the majority, and are no longer frowned upon to nearly the same degree they used to be even among the "grown-ups".

In fact, sexual profanity had reached such ubiquity already in the ancient times of the turn of the millennium (when I was already an extremely mature person, all growed-up at advanced age of 18), my friends and I were aghast at the prolific use of the Finnish equivalent to "fuck" in overheard conversations of 12-16-year-olds. When we were their age, we had more respect for other people. I must admit, though, that I was secretly jealous of their having devised a workable solution for denoting "space" in spoken language. It's not a terribly economical one, as the Finnish term has two syllables, but the Finnish for "space" (as in the empty bit between two written words, not the big mostly empty thing outside the atmosphere) has 4 syllables and totals 10 letters, so in comparison it's actually fairly efficient.

InkRose, can you please share some excellent Finnish profanity with us please?

CPP, it would be my honour. Assuming our host doesn't object, of course. Or would you prefer an educational consultation on your own blog? The main problem with this project, though, rises from the very different pronunciation of English and Finnish. English just doesn't do consonants anywhere near as emphatically (neither do, from what little experience I have, the Nordic languages), and the habit of "bending" (I can't remember my phonetic terminology anymore, please forgive me) the vowels in so many places does weaken the visceral power of these expressions. German pronunciation gets quite close, with only a few differences - in fact, imagining you're Till Lindemann of Rammstein proclaiming on stage will probably get you into the right phonetic neighbourhood.

A few tasters, then, with literal translations:
Pulunnussija = pigeonfucker (might seem dated to some, and it has actually been used in broadcast TV subtitles, in the first Die Hard movie iirc. I've always quite liked this one, mostly for the creativity factor)
Vittupää = pussyhead, cunthead (A more practicable English approximation would be something along the lines of "fuckwit", or possibly "fuckface", this latter one more probably used as a term of endearment)
And lastly, a fourth grade (as in 4th grade of elementary school) favourite of mine, which is not exactly a swearword but a fairly offensive expression nonetheless. I sometimes think most of the more vocal pseudoscience advocates suffer from this condition. I suspect the phenomenon could only be observed in vivo, though, due to the inscrutable nature of the quantum chi they seem to express. "Sun päässäs kusi virtaa ja paska tekee patoja" = "Piss flows in your head, and the dams are made of shit" This last one is not a literal translation, due to grammatical considerations, but I'm sure I've captured the essence of the expression.

One of the perks of Finnish as well as a few other languages, when it comes to creative swearing, is the way we structure our compound nouns into a single word without really any limitations at least as long as you stick to the nominal form. You can include nouns, adjectives (just cut these down to the stem and insert), and verbs, probably adverbials as well, and just keep piling them on until you run out of breath if you're so inclined. Of course, in most cases the result isn't strictly grammatically correct, but, in a situation where you'd be likely to do this, I doubt anyone would give a rat's ass about correct grammar. Probably the longest actually used compound noun in Finnish is lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas, or (literally) "airplane jet (turbine) engine assistant mechanic petty officer in training". Now, who wouldn't want that as a job title on their business card?

Let me know if you want more, good Comrade, and I'll visit more profanity upon you on your own turf, and not further befoul the haunts of innocent bystanders. Also, apologies all around for the long-windedness and off-topicitude.