New Hampshire AD Cracks Down On Swearing

(above) The UNH Student Section was told to limit vulgarity at hockey games

The men's hockey games at University of New Hampshire are consistently packed. The Whittemore Center Arena is filled to its 6,501 capacity almost every time the Wildcats take the ice in Durham. Parents, children, students, professors and even opposing fans make the trip to see some of the best college hockey players in the country battle on ice. The experience is often entertaining and exhilarating but more recently, it has become a poor language lesson too. [read rest of article]

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Students need to be passionate and classy....good luck with that...

Anonymous said...

Profanity is a short-cut and a cop-out for the great unwashed.

Real student sections should be more creative in their cheering.

Donald Dunlop said...

Words are are equal. No word has more or less "value" than another.

Assigning judgement that one word is profane while another isn't is ridiculous.

English is the most versatile and descriptive human language that has ever developed and Victorian efforts to limit it's use are hypocritical.

I'm not unwashed and would say on the contrary that those who wish to limit usage of words are skirt-hiding pussies.

Anonymous said...

Donald Dunlop--your argument holds no water.

1. You're kidding yourself if you believe all words are equal. You're telling me racial epithets are accpetable?? Sorry dude....not buying it.
2. Your individual perspective doesn't apply to the rest of society. Just as you may enjoy watching dogfighting or swearing like a dockworker (not that you do, just an example) doesn't mean others wouldn't and shouldn't find that offensive.

Donald Dunlop said...

Certainly people find certain words offensive. Even with my broad acceptance of language there are words I find offensive.

The two most foul words that I can think of in the English language are rape and murder. Yet those two vile words are commonly used with nobody batting an eye.

Why are those words offensive to me? Because of their meaning. It is the connotation of words that should be a concern and not the words themselves.

Here's an example:
The words SHIT and POOP have exactly the same connotation. Whether someone says "I just took a shit" or "I just went poop" the person hearing those words has an IDENTICAL connotation upon hearing it. With that being the case ... I say again, it is ridiculous to assign one to the profane column while having the other be acceptable.

But lets talk about this in context of a hockey game. Yelling "YOU SUCK" or "FUCK THE GOPHERS" for example would be viewed by the nancys of this world as being "bad". Yet if a student section yelled "You are orally inclined to ingest large volumes of air" or "Sexually Intercourse the Gophers" nobody would bat an eye. But in context ... "you suck" or "fuck the gophers" doesn't actually mean anything sexual ... it just is a simple way to attempt to taunt the opponent.

The truth is there is nary a soul amongst us who when dropping their teacup on the marble kitchen floor wouldn't exclaim "Oh shit". Yet the majority eschews the word outside of the privacy of their home. Hypocrisy. Plain and simple.

But what about the children you ask. Ah yes ... the children. Consider this ... children notice things when an adult makes an issue of it. If a young child (say 5 yo) walked with his/her parent through the mall and all around them the f-bombs and other so-called expletives were flying at a clearly discernable volume do you think the child would notice if his/her parent didn't bother to comment and/or point it out?

Language doesn't hurt. The actions defined by the words do. Let us not confuse the two.

Anyone insisting otherwise is full of shit.

dggoddard said...

CC sucks. :-)

Donald Dunlop said...

It irks me that institutions of alleged higher learning attempt in any manner to control the young adults who are after all paying HUGE sums for their education.

The "Faucks News" crowd is worried about the "nanny-state" yet they seem to be the first ones lined up to question why their institutions allow swearing?

dggoddard said...

The key for any student section is to keep the cheers fresh. If you keep repeating the same vulgarity, sooner or later some fan is going to take exception, the administration will take action and the next thing you know the head coach is out on center ice with his 5 year-old grandson.

Anonymous said...

Not this same tired shit again.....

Anonymous said...

Dunlop......get your head out of your ass. There's nothing wrong wrong with holding people to a higher standard. It's not the connotation of words or their usage...it's the EFFECT certain words have. Connotation has nothing to do with it. You know damn well if someone says F*** you has a far greater effect than "stick something in yourself."

Donald Dunlop said...

There is plenty fucking wrong with holding people to someone else's ridiculous fucking "higher" standard. Beautifully ironic though that you argue for a "higher standard" while telling me to get my head out of my ass.

Just proclaiming some "standard" as "higher" is in itself ridiculous. Whose "standard" do we use? Yours? Someone else with an even tighter asshole than you?

Actually, my position with regard to this subject IS a higher standard. Subscribing to Victorian ideals that are long since outmoded is a "LOWER standard". And insisting that others adhere is offensive, revolting and just plain STUPID.

Culture by definition is a forward moving entity. Clinging to "tradition" for no other reason than it is "tradition" is the surest way to stagnation.

The problem here is that half of the sheep in this world can't begin for a minute to consider that the SHIT that mommy spoon-fed them isn't necessarily valid.

Think for yourFUCKINGselves and don't be beholden to ideas that were paternally passed down just because they made sense to the generation that preceded you.

Donald Dunlop said...

Oops.

I forgot to laugh at the fact that you starred-out the UCK in the word fuck.

No doubt you don't see the irony in that either.

Boosh said...

There are very few times in a hockey game, if any, where the word fuck needs to be used, if rational people are involved. If stupid students with the IQ of a stale potato chip are being considered, well, then things are different. Telling someone to 'fuck themselves' or saying 'fuck you' is basically saying that you're too brain dead to come up with something clever to say and instead need to resort to acting like a 7-year-old.

Anonymous said...

Dunlop.....chirp, chirp, chirp. You spray more diarrhea from the mouth than most. I hope you provide napkins and raincoats. Good rant, though. Your references to Victorian ideals and cultural stagnation are comical.

If you can't grasp the idea of the societal norms and standards and why they are appropriate, clean out your locker and head back to
1st grade......you're obviously dumber than a box of rocks.

Donald Dunlop said...

Anon:
Thank you for providing such a quality example of exactly the sort of bleating sheep I was referencing.

Cardinal Ratzinger himself couldn't have done a better job, excepting of course that he probably wouldn't have resorted to the weak insults you used.

The difference between you and me though is that I fully understand the points you made. You don't even begin to grasp the mine. Oh and of course, that I'm man enough to put my name on this and you are one of the skirt-hiding nancy sheep that I mentioned.

Anonymous said...

Dunlop.....yeah, your references to sheep, Cardinals, Victorian society, cultural stagnation etc are so deeply intellectual. I cannot grasp any of that. I'll keep trying though, homeboy.

And you're more of a man because you attach a name to yourself on a blog???? Sure, whatever you say. You're a clown who's obviously infatuated with sheep.

Twister said...

Love the colorful banter!

Anonymous said...

I've had enough of this!

DD, shut the fuck up.

Anon, could you please be so kind and refrain from posting at your earliest convenience?

;-)