Friday, January 04, 2008

Using the language

See over on Damien's blog a massive who-ha over not much really.

What I don't understand is why people are having a go at Damien for his language. Why can't people see that different things offend different people.

Personally, I don't find the word "retard" offensive. I find other words offensive and if people use them towards me I won't be shy in letting them know I find it offensive. Similarily I would expect people to say the same to me. But it's all about how they let the person know.

Recently, Tommy Tiernan got slated by do-gooders over his DVD yet people with the disabilities he was making fun off stood up for him. We can make fun of stupid people, white people, people with no disorders so if we are treat everyone the same, why can't people make fun of the disabled? Surely that's one of the best ways to integrate everyone into our environment.

This is one of the reason's I enjoyed the Borat movie and also his book. He doesn't hold back and presents it from the point of view of someone who actually uses the language in the manner.

Maybe we need to understand if the people who are being called these words find it offensive. Black, coloured or whatever the PC term is now-a-days people often call each other "nigger" so why can't I call them it? Often they refer to caucasian people as "white boy" or "white girl". If I get offended by this what next - do I tell them to stop?

The world needs to calm the fluck down and stop a lot of this PC nonsense.

3 comments:

anonymoose said...

I just Googled "Damien Mulley is a retard" for the fun of it, to see what pops up and you're blog did hence the comment.

I agree that people may have gone a little too PC in dictating what words are and are not in bad taste. People these days seem to be afraid to say certain things.
However I also hold the opinion that people should be allowed to voice an opinion without being told to "go fuck yourself" in a most unprofessional manner. I know Damien uses his blog for both professional and personal purposes (I heard him say so on Newstalk last Saturday) so this highly inappropriate outburst strikes me as being very unprofessional. Alas just talking a glance through other posts this sort of childish unprofessional outburst does not seem to be an isolated incident.
I know one can say "It's my blog and I'll say what I like". This attitude is fine for personal blogs but not really appropriate for professional. I hope Damien preaches something better than he practices on his own blog at his blogging courses.

Steve said...

Its weird this. I also googled the same thing and I didn't appear until the end of the 2nd page after the search. Did you leave comments on the other blogs/websites you found as well.

I have no idea why you googled that to be honest. Maybe its the spaness in your head but who knows.

Personally, I have no problem what people but on their blogs. Damien's blog, to me, first and foremost is a personal blog that he also uses for highlighting professional issues. Its not the other way around. I dont think its highly unprofessional and judging by the amount of people who talk to Damien and who Damien helps maybe they dont see it that way either.

Also, if this really bothers ya why the anonymous comments? Why not be public and show that you care and stand up for these peple. At least Damien is man enough to be public about his comments and you hide this profile?

Finally, remember that not every country treats words the same. In Oz, they have the Spastic Centre. In Ireland Spastic is a word similar in irksome to retard.

So go fuck yourself.

anonymoose said...

From your response, I'm not actually sure that you read what I said. I'm not calling the word retard unprofessional ( I don't actually have a problem with Retard or Spa being used (except of course in a maliciously abusive context which this is not)) I'm calling the reaction to a question unprofessional.

As for why I googled "Damien Mulley is a retard". I had been following the retard situation and it was a logical thing to google given the topic. As for what google page it appeared on. It was on the first page for me but then again I have google set to 100 results per page as you rarely find what you're looking for off page 1. And as for commenting on every other page. Alot of them are twitter or aggregators or unrelated other "retard" comments. I think the only other genuine blogs before yours on the list were the Man himself and the blog of the guy who had the cheek to ask the question.

I wouldn't have comment on professionalism if I hadn't actually heard Damien say live on Newstalk radio this week that his blog was also is professional space.