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Should 'Fairytale of New York' be censored?

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stevensfo
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Should 'Fairytale of New York' be censored?

#185387

Postby stevensfo » December 7th, 2018, 2:37 pm

I thought it was a joke, but apparently, some people are outraged, gobsmacked, gutted (delete where applicable) about a line in the famous Pogues song: ' “You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot.”

No, not scumbag or maggot, but 'faggot' which in this case does not refer to those meatballs I used to eat as a child - and later made in a factory as a summer job - after which I never ate then again! :-)

I predict that if the rate of change keeps increasing, we will soon be some dystopian nightmare where, by the time we reach the end of a sentence, the word we used at the beginning of the sentence has suddenly become offensive and got us into trouble.

Am I allowed to use the phrase 'got us into trouble'?

Steve

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Re: Should 'Fairytale of New York' be censored?

#185389

Postby Lootman » December 7th, 2018, 2:40 pm

If the word "** removed **" was removed from the novels of William Faulkner, his books would be a far bit shorter.

Political correctness should not apply to historical contexts, particularly in the arts.

stevensfo
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Re: Should 'Fairytale of New York' be censored?

#185404

Postby stevensfo » December 7th, 2018, 2:59 pm

If the word "** removed **" was removed from the novels of William Faulkner, his books would be a far bit shorter.


By coincidence, I recently read his 'As I Lay Dying' which was amazing, though very much an acquired taste. I think I can guess which word you mean, though it only occurred once in this book.

Steve

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Re: Should 'Fairytale of New York' be censored?

#185429

Postby UncleIan » December 7th, 2018, 3:44 pm

I'm starting to really dislike twitter, journalists seem to be confusing it for news, when it just seems to be people shouting at each other. Unless I'm missing something.

As far as I can work out, an RTE journo tweeted that two gay colleagues, one thought it should be censored, one didn't like hearing the song at all.
Then a twitter storm erupts and suddenly PEOPLE ARE GETTING ANGRY.

RTE aren't censoring it. Apparently the BBC wanted it censored when they played it on top of the pops back in 1987. No, not faggot, but wanted Kirsty MacColl to say "ass" and not "[expletive deleted]". Then some years later removed the word faggot, and got such a backlash they started playing the original again.

I wonder if this kind of thing is just being jumped on to provide fuel for "THE WORLD'S GAWN MAD" type stories.

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Re: Should 'Fairytale of New York' be censored?

#185463

Postby AleisterCrowley » December 7th, 2018, 6:20 pm

See the little faggot with the earring and the make up
Yeah buddy that's his own hair
That little faggot got his own jet airplane
That little faggot he's a millionaire

[Money for Nothing, Dire Straits]

I think the above was censored for radio play, or self-censored by Knopfler in subsequent concert performances?
Seem a bit OTT, as the song is 'reported dialogue' rather than being Knopfler's words

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Re: Should 'Fairytale of New York' be censored?

#185474

Postby chas49 » December 7th, 2018, 6:52 pm

stevensfo wrote:
If the word "** removed **" was removed from the novels of William Faulkner, his books would be a far bit shorter.


By coincidence, I recently read his 'As I Lay Dying' which was amazing, though very much an acquired taste. I think I can guess which word you mean, though it only occurred once in this book.

Steve


Just for clarity, the word that has been removed, was removed by the automatic filter that also changes a**e to [expletive deleted]. The removed word is often referred to as the N-word.

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Re: Should 'Fairytale of New York' be censored?

#185476

Postby Lootman » December 7th, 2018, 6:57 pm

chas49 wrote:
stevensfo wrote:
If the word "** removed **" was removed from the novels of William Faulkner, his books would be a far bit shorter.

By coincidence, I recently read his 'As I Lay Dying' which was amazing, though very much an acquired taste. I think I can guess which word you mean, though it only occurred once in this book.

Just for clarity, the word that has been removed, was removed by the automatic filter that also changes a**e to Pink marshmallows. The removed word is often referred to as the N-word.

Does that automatic filter differentiate between use of the word itself and talking about the word? The latter was indicated by putting the word in quotes, and to my mind the filter should know the difference.

Evidently the aforementioned F word is OK but the N word isn't.

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Re: Should 'Fairytale of New York' be censored?

#185491

Postby stevensfo » December 7th, 2018, 9:48 pm

Just for clarity, the word that has been removed, was removed by the automatic filter that also changes a**e to Pink marshmallows. The removed word is often referred to as the N-word.


I can still remember the over-zealous AOL email software in the 90s.

Anybody writing about the murder of historical figures would have their essays full of **ination.

Having worked in protein crystallography, I also know a true story of a young lady who went to work at a university in the USA and who started to get strange looks and was summoned to her boss. The IT guys had reported that she was searching for porn on the internet.

She was a post-doc using X-ray crystallography to study 3-D protein structure (like Crick/Watson who did the same but with DNA).

'X-' set off the alarms!


Steve

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Re: Should 'Fairytale of New York' be censored?

#185530

Postby bungeejumper » December 8th, 2018, 9:16 am

stevensfo wrote:I can still remember the over-zealous AOL email software in the 90s.

Indeed. And I think it was Microsoft that needed to be reminded that Scunthorpe was a real place?

BJ

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Re: Should 'Fairytale of New York' be censored?

#185547

Postby tjh290633 » December 8th, 2018, 10:32 am

bungeejumper wrote:
stevensfo wrote:I can still remember the over-zealous AOL email software in the 90s.

Indeed. And I think it was Microsoft that needed to be reminded that Scunthorpe was a real place?

BJ

The defunct "This is Money" discussion boards suffered from that filter, overcome by judicious use of hyphens or spacing.

TJH

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Re: Should 'Fairytale of New York' be censored?

#185566

Postby AndyPandy » December 8th, 2018, 11:47 am

stevensfo wrote:
Just for clarity, the word that has been removed, was removed by the automatic filter that also changes a**e to Pink marshmallows. The removed word is often referred to as the N-word.


I can still remember the over-zealous AOL email software in the 90s.

Anybody writing about the murder of historical figures would have their essays full of **ination.

Having worked in protein crystallography, I also know a true story of a young lady who went to work at a university in the USA and who started to get strange looks and was summoned to her boss. The IT guys had reported that she was searching for porn on the internet.

She was a post-doc using X-ray crystallography to study 3-D protein structure (like Crick/Watson who did the same but with DNA).

'X-' set off the alarms!


Steve


The whole field of Chemistry is a bit of a minefield

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... vulgarisms


Back on topic, however the Pogues' name itself was derived from the Gaelic "Pogue Mahone" which means "Kiss my ǝsɹɐ". Somehow, I doubt if the Band's members are too worried about censorship since it brings in about £400K of Royalties each year and the controversy is bound to boost sales.

Personally, it's my favourite Christmas song and was lucky enough to see the Pogues Live at Brixton Academy years ago just before Christmas, waltzing in the aisles to that song whilst Shane McGowan clung onto the mike to stop himself keeling over.

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Re: Should 'Fairytale of New York' be censored?

#185586

Postby Gengulphus » December 8th, 2018, 1:43 pm

chas49 wrote:Just for clarity, the word that has been removed, was removed by the automatic filter that also changes a**e to Pink marshmallows. The removed word is often referred to as the N-word.

FWIW, with a bit of imagination / lateral thinking it's entirely possible to deliberately get either of those words to appear in a post - I've checked that by preparing a draft post that would do so and previewing it, but then not submitting it. The automatic filter only prevents them appearing inadvertently (e.g. because they're used somewhere in the middle of quoted material and the poster didn't notice) or with a plausible excuse that the poster didn't know that using them was against site policy.

Gengulphus

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Re: Should 'Fairytale of New York' be censored?

#185598

Postby gryffron » December 8th, 2018, 2:08 pm

Certainly not in the UK. Where a faggot is a meatball or a lump of wood to put on a fire. I've never heard anybody in this country use it as an insult. Indeed, the act of banning it could well justify and spread its Amercanised meaning. Not like we Brits are so short of insults for gays that we need another one.

Even worse, once you ban faggot, you'd end up having to ban "fags" as well. Which is a much more everyday word in the UK for cigarettes.

Gryff

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Re: Should 'Fairytale of New York' be censored?

#185606

Postby bungeejumper » December 8th, 2018, 2:32 pm

gryffron wrote:Even worse, once you ban faggot, you'd end up having to ban "fags" as well. Which is a much more everyday word in the UK for cigarettes.

Indeed. I've had to explain to Americans that "gasping for a fag" is not what they think it is. ;) In return, I've asked them (a) why their bathrooms don't have baths, and (b) exactly what it is that's so bad when it sucks, but so far I've had no intelligible reply on either score.

BJ

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Re: Should 'Fairytale of New York' be censored?

#185607

Postby gryffron » December 8th, 2018, 2:49 pm

And their faces when a sweet little old lady says "I could murder a fag".

:lol:

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Re: Should 'Fairytale of New York' be censored?

#185615

Postby stevensfo » December 8th, 2018, 3:57 pm

Indeed. I've had to explain to Americans that "gasping for a fag" is not what they think it is.


Another one is their look of horror when you mention all the drugs that someone has to take every day, then, when you've explained that these are 'medicines' calmly asking them how they call the shop in the USA where you buy the medicine. :-)

Steve

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Re: Should 'Fairytale of New York' be censored?

#185638

Postby kiloran » December 8th, 2018, 6:17 pm

gryffron wrote:And their faces when a sweet little old lady says "I could murder a fag".

:lol:

And, of course, when a 5-year-old asks teacher for a rubber

--kiloran

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Re: Should 'Fairytale of New York' be censored?

#185651

Postby stevensfo » December 8th, 2018, 7:52 pm

And, of course, when a 5-year-old asks teacher for a rubber


Do they really still use that slang in the USA? I was under the impression that they use 'condom' these days.

In the UK I haven't heard it called a 'Rubber Johnny' for a long time. I still remember 'French letter'.

Talking of french, how about the 'faux ami' of 'Does it have any preservatives in it''? :-)


Steve

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Re: Should 'Fairytale of New York' be censored?

#185655

Postby Lootman » December 8th, 2018, 8:09 pm

gryffron wrote:And their faces when a sweet little old lady says "I could murder a fag".

The other one to be careful about in the US, when requesting a morning wake-up call, is to ask to be "knocked up in the morning".

In US parlance "knocked up" means to be pregnant, usually unintentionally.

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Re: Should 'Fairytale of New York' be censored?

#185660

Postby chas49 » December 8th, 2018, 8:22 pm

Lootman wrote:
gryffron wrote:And their faces when a sweet little old lady says "I could murder a fag".

The other one to be careful about in the US, when requesting a morning wake-up call, is to ask to be "knocked up in the morning".

In US parlance "knocked up" means to be pregnant, usually unintentionally.


Doesn't it mean that in the UK as well?


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