Cat Using toilet and toilet paper

In ,
MLB typed:
Jofirey wrote:

"Yowie" wrote in message
...
In ,
ScratchMonkey typed:
"Yowie" wrote in
:

I'd never heard of anyone being discreet about toilet paper until
I joined Usenet - it seems only to be Americans that tend not to
say the full words. Don't know why.

The same reason many other words (ie. "swear" words, and Carlin's
"seven") aren't used in public: It's a class thing. Middle class
people want to look upper class and NOT look lower class, so they
don't use "vulgar" (ie. common) language. Americans are
particularly vulnerable to this inferiority complex, and I think
mothers most of all (because they want their kids to aspire to be
upper class). My mother had no problem swearing up a storm, but woe if
I dared to
let loose such a word. Of course, once she was out of ear shot, I
could tell all my friends all about my rich vocabulary that I
learned *from her*.

Strange.... I would never have thought 'toilet paper' as vulgar.

Will have to remember this if I ever got to the USA.

Or, I'll embarass whoever I'm visiting at the time by yelling in the
supermarket at the top of my Aussie lungs "WHICH AISLE HAS THE BOG
ROLLS?" hehehehehe

Yowie
That's OK. You wouldn't embarrass anyone as we don't use the word
bog and wouldn't have any idea what you were talking about.

I was twenty when I moved in with roommates who were too discrete to
actually write toilet paper on the shopping list. I didn't have a
clue what they meant by TP.

Jo

I was a new bride when my new husband (long past "EX") wrote 'bum
fodder" on the grocery list.

ROFLMAO! Sounds like a very Aussie thing to say; will have to remember that.

Yowie

ScratchMonkey wrote:
"Yowie" wrote in
:

I'd never heard of anyone being discreet about toilet paper until I
joined Usenet - it seems only to be Americans that tend not to say the
full words. Don't know why.

The same reason many other words (ie. "swear" words, and Carlin's "seven")
aren't used in public: It's a class thing. Middle class people want to look
upper class and NOT look lower class, so they don't use "vulgar" (ie.
common) language. Americans are particularly vulnerable to this inferiority
complex, and I think mothers most of all (because they want their kids to
aspire to be upper class).

My mother had no problem swearing up a storm, but woe if I dared to let
loose such a word. Of course, once she was out of ear shot, I could tell
all my friends all about my rich vocabulary that I learned *from her*.

The situation is far more nuanced than that. There's the choice of swear
words, and the choice of situations. There's the
educational/intelligence aspect - how many people have been told that
there *are* words in English other than swear words, and a reasonably
educated/intelligent person knows more than a handful and doesn't used
the same handful for all occasions. There are moral issues, in addition
to the religious ones - some people think that sex is special and good
and references to it shouldn't be used as swear words. Some dislike
particular terms or phrases that are abusive to a particular group,
often women, being used to display rage or aggression. Some consider it
a mark of respect for others not to use terms that they know will annoy
or upset some of them, even if they personally consider the words
harmless, while others don't care if anyone is annoyed as long as they
personally has freedom of expression. Some people are calm, or consider
it a mark of admirable self-control to lose their temper very rarely,
and save the strong language for those rare occasions; others let loose
every time they stub their toe or have trouble opening the milk carton.

I expect mothers, who still seem to have a lot of their responsibility
for socializing their children, are as concerned about the way they
present themselves in public - educated, intelligent, courteous, calm -
as they are about shoving the kids up a class level or so. After all,
even an uneducated poor person can be courteous and know that there are
different levels of language for use in different situations.

And just to make matters even more complicated, the definition and
strength of various swear words varies among different groups of people
speaking the same language, and anyone who wants to meet and deal with
people outside their own immediate group needs to know what these
differences are!

--
Cheryl

On Sep 15, 11:07*pm, "Yowie"
wrote:
wrote in message



MLB wrote:

Ever hear these?:
I have to see a man about a horse?
A friend is calling.
Nature is telling me something.
Where is the rest room?

I've heard "nature is calling". Never heard the one about having to
see a man about a horse!

My maternal granparents had to see a man about a dog.

My father called it paying his taxes. Louie and I refer to it as going
to the voting booth, making a meaningful social statement, going to
the reading room or meditation chamber, or ditching our stash; if the
job is particularly big, we ask each other to call the Navy and tell
them their order for a new aircraft carrier is in.

And of course there's the classic, dropping the kids off at the pool.

Blessed be,
Baha

Oooohhhhh come to my town and do that PLEASE. Would be a hoot.
"Yowie" wrote in message
...
In ,
ScratchMonkey typed:
"Yowie" wrote in
:

I'd never heard of anyone being discreet about toilet paper until I
joined Usenet - it seems only to be Americans that tend not to say
the full words. Don't know why.

The same reason many other words (ie. "swear" words, and Carlin's
"seven") aren't used in public: It's a class thing. Middle class
people want to look upper class and NOT look lower class, so they
don't use "vulgar" (ie. common) language. Americans are particularly
vulnerable to this inferiority complex, and I think mothers most of
all (because they want their kids to aspire to be upper class).

My mother had no problem swearing up a storm, but woe if I dared to
let loose such a word. Of course, once she was out of ear shot, I
could tell all my friends all about my rich vocabulary that I learned
*from her*.

Strange.... I would never have thought 'toilet paper' as vulgar.

Will have to remember this if I ever got to the USA.

Or, I'll embarass whoever I'm visiting at the time by yelling in the
supermarket at the top of my Aussie lungs "WHICH AISLE HAS THE BOG ROLLS?"
hehehehehe

Yowie

Cheryl wrote:

ScratchMonkey wrote:

The same reason many other words (ie. "swear" words, and Carlin's "seven")
aren't used in public: It's a class thing.

The situation is far more nuanced than that.

[snip excellent post]

Interesting analysis, Cheryl. Those are all good points. And I
agree that it's important to know the impact of your words on other
people who may have a different cultural background and/or different
values, or different associations with various words, from your own.

I also understand the "freedom of speech" argument, but in my own
speech patterns I try to modify my speech as much as is possible
and comfortable for me, out of respect for the people around me. My
natural speech contains a fair amount of swearing, but generally
not in a hostile way. I don't go around saying "f-ing this" and
"f-ing" that every other word, but I will easily and unconsiously
talk about something being "f-ed up", or something "scared the s**t
out of me", etc. To me, this hardly even feels like swearing. But
in environments where the norm is not to use those words, I try not
to, also. This is much easier done online than in actual speech,
because of the real-time aspect of talking. I can't tell you the
number of times the f-word has accidentally slipped out of my mouth
in front of someone's kid.

As for the relative severity of different words, yeah, I feel like
I have some limits around that. I simply refuse to put asterisks
in words like damn or hell. To me, those words are so mild that
they don't seem like swear words at all. I know that some people
feel they are, but I have to cut myself some slack somewhere!

One thing I find interesting: when I was a teenager, the word
"suck" was every bit as vulgar and rude as the f-word that rhymes
with it. There was a hippie magazine called Suck that was shocking
in its time (late 60s). People were very conscious of the sexual
act that was being referred to by that word. But nowadays, the
word is totally mainstream. You hear it on the radio, on TV, all
over the place. Have people forgotten, just over a few decades,
what the word actually means? I also wonder if the word is as
ubiquitous in other English-speaking countries as it is in the
US. Or maybe it's always been acceptable in other places?

I remember reading a novel when I was young, that must have been
written decades earlier. In one scene, a kid is sitting at the
dinner table with his family, and he says "Aw, nuts" about something.
His dad says, "Watch your language, son." At the time, I was utterly
baffled. Language? "Aw, nuts" sounded so mild as to be just plain
dorky. Anyone who said that in front of other kids at my school would've
been ridiculed to death. I'm sure I must have known that "nuts" meant
testicles, but I didn't make the connection at the time to that
expression. Apparently swear words change over time as the connection
to the original meaning is forgotten.

Joyce

--
Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is
beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but
the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.
-- Dave Barry

BfloPolska wrote:

My father called it paying his taxes. Louie and I refer to it as going
to the voting booth, making a meaningful social statement, going to
the reading room or meditation chamber, or ditching our stash; if the
job is particularly big, we ask each other to call the Navy and tell
them their order for a new aircraft carrier is in.

And of course there's the classic, dropping the kids off at the pool.

LOL. I have not heard any of those. I like the last one.

After the fact, there are also threats to call the EPA. (Environmental
Protection Agency )

Joyce

--
Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is
beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but
the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.
-- Dave Barry

wrote in news:4ab2df08$0$1593
:

There is that. When I was growing up, my sisters and I weren't allowed
to swear, either. Not for class reasons, though, but, it seemed, for
*age* reasons. I don't ever remember either of my parents saying we
shouldn't swear because it would make us sound vulgar or low-class.

No one would *admit* to it being class-based. We're supposed to be a
classless society. But the envy is still there.

My dad was a fine example of this - his vocabulary was rich with
colorful expressions. My mother hated it and cringed whenever he used
bad language. She didn't come from a higher-class background than he
did, though - she just found it aggressive and offensive.

My point was that it's the lower and lower-middle class, not the upper
class, who are so class-aware. They aspire to being perceived as being like
the upper class.

"Jofirey" wrote in news:7hge8nF2t42a2U1
@mid.individual.net:

I was twenty when I moved in with roommates who were too discrete to
actually write toilet paper on the shopping list. I didn't have a
clue what they meant by TP.

It never occurred to me that "toilet paper" was considered mildly obscene.
(Perhaps I'm too upper class. :P) I just assumed "TP" was to save having to
spell it out.

wrote in news:4ab40fb1$0$1644
:

As for the relative severity of different words, yeah, I feel like
I have some limits around that. I simply refuse to put asterisks
in words like damn or hell. To me, those words are so mild that
they don't seem like swear words at all. I know that some people
feel they are, but I have to cut myself some slack somewhere!

And I go the other way: If you tell me I must bowdlerize my speech, then I
require that you use no euphemisms. I consider that cheating, and won't
tolerate the double standard.

I went to a Christian high school (that burned religion out of me) and one
of the rules was that you couldn't say words like "gee" because that was
just a cheat for "god" or "jesus". I took that to heart. If you're gonna go
to all the trouble of swearing, be serious about it and use the real words.

ScratchMonkey wrote:
wrote in news:4ab40fb1$0$1644
:

As for the relative severity of different words, yeah, I feel like
I have some limits around that. I simply refuse to put asterisks
in words like damn or hell. To me, those words are so mild that
they don't seem like swear words at all. I know that some people
feel they are, but I have to cut myself some slack somewhere!

And I go the other way: If you tell me I must bowdlerize my speech, then I
require that you use no euphemisms. I consider that cheating, and won't
tolerate the double standard.

I tend to think of things exactly in reverse. Except in special
circumstances (I curse out a client of my employer, shout 'fire' in a
crowded theatre), it doesn't matter to me whether someone else is trying
to control my speech or not, because they can't enforce their preferences.

But I can make some attempt to control my own behaviour, and I wouldn't
try to enforce a standard of speech on another person (again, except in
special circumstances such as when I'm the employer and that person is
representing me to clients).

I do, of course, form my opinion of the other person based on what and
how they say, among many other factors.

I went to a Christian high school (that burned religion out of me) and one
of the rules was that you couldn't say words like "gee" because that was
just a cheat for "god" or "jesus". I took that to heart. If you're gonna go
to all the trouble of swearing, be serious about it and use the real words.

You must be an extremely busy person if you're monitoring the speech of
everyone else, especially given how quickly a word can change levels.
Someone mentioned 'nuts' - I was an adult before I found out 'you little
sod' was anything other than a mild criticism of an annoying child,
exactly equivalent to 'you little nuisance'. I'd better not say who
called me a 'little sod' when I was a child, so as to save you a few
corrections.

--
Cheryl