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RE: How can any grown adult use the term "potty-mouth" without cringing in embarassment?
- From: "Robb, Sam" <sam dot robb at timesys dot com>
- To: "Talk Amongst Yourselves" <cygwin-talk at cygwin dot com>
- Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 15:07:09 -0500
- Subject: RE: How can any grown adult use the term "potty-mouth" without cringing in embarassment?
- Reply-to: Talk Amongst Yourselves <cygwin-talk at cygwin dot com>
> a) The term "potty mouth" is a euphemism for "profanity"
> and/or "obscenity" and/or "swearing".
True; but the rest of your argument is predicated on the
idea that "potty mount" is *only* a euphemism. IMHO, there
are some nuances implied by using the term.
In my experience, at least, it's used primarily when a child
says something profane *primarily* to offend, embarass, or
just to make someone who objects to that sort of language
uncomfortable. They don't care about the word itself, they
just want to get a reaction out of someone else.
Use of the term was intended, I think, to convey the idea
that leaving the (purportedly) obscene material in the
fortune data files as plain text didn't really serve any
useful purpose, unless that purpose was to intentionally
offend.
-Samrobb