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[The Merchant Of Menace]

I'd personally say that calling something gay is inherantly homophobic. It's implying that being gay is a negative thing.

The example from Huckleberry Finn is an idiotic thing to censor though, half of the point of Mark Twain's books is that they're written in a style appropriate to the time period they're set in. Black people were called niggers back then. Changing or censoring that is like having a novel seet in Ancient Greece ^TM where people go around calling each other lad and bloke. Although the fact that those aren't actually insults does change it somewhat, the bare essence is the same.

[Leafsnail]

Changing or censoring that is like having a novel seet in Ancient Greece ^TM where people go around calling each other lad and bloke.

I dunno, is there anything more accurate about using archaic terms if you're writing about a place where they spoke Ancient Greek?

[The Merchant Of Menace]

...
Well played.

[shadenight123]

Changing or censoring that is like having a novel seet in Ancient Greece ^TM where people go around calling each other lad and bloke.

I dunno, is there anything more accurate about using archaic terms if you're writing about a place where they spoke Ancient Greek?

please, in ancient greek hitting the balls, kicking the *pole* and so on where common.
there was no such nonsense as censorship, except political ones.
they even let rape be shown on scenes! (the fact that it was usually only male actors, one wearing a female mask, changes nothing).

and the term were quite actually the horrible ones.
they had Key actors for key roles. so the "sly servant" was always depicted in a certain way, as the leecherous uncle, and so forth.
and many, many roles required insults/swearing/worse to make the audience understand WHAT role the actor took on.

[Leafsnail]

That's not what I said at all.

What I'm saying is that modern expressions such as "lad" and "bloke" are no closer to what Ancient Greek people spoke (Ancient Greek) than older sounding terms.  They might even be more appropriate for conveying the mood of something if the Ancient Greek word they used was informal/ new sounding.

Nothing to do with censorship.

[GlyphGryph]

And how do you know the Greeks weren't huge on censorship anyways? After all, if they were, everything you read from them would have been censored... how would you?

[shadenight123]

me neither. i was referring to how you said that "lad and bloke" since they were as archaic as the greek tragedy/comedy could be used as fitting substitutes without causing harm to the script.
point is, you're more likely to find a curse than a "lad" or "bloke"

And how do you know the Greeks weren't huge on censorship anyways? After all, if they were, everything you read from them would have been censored... how would you?

that's because the case of censorships are known.
greeks were one thing, but words and murmurs travelled, and since they were on a polis basis and all, a city could tell stuff another could not.
even the worst dictatorship were known to censor stuff, and it did pass through.

U_U so we know what's censored, and what's not.

[MonkeyHead]

In the UK, hate crimes that can be proven to have a motive linked to transgender individuals will suffer double the penalty than regular old fashioned hate crimes. Reported widley in media this morning.

Cant work out if I feel "good - bigoted idiots deserve punishment" or "bad - arent all hate crimes evil?"

[Leafsnail]

me neither. i was referring to how you said that "lad and bloke" since they were as archaic as the greek tragedy/comedy could be used as fitting substitutes without causing harm to the script.
point is, you're more likely to find a curse than a "lad" or "bloke"

Woah, so every single word in every single Greek conversation was a curse, and they never addressed each other at all?

And I'm saying that they aren't archaic, but that using archaic language is no more accurate to the original than modern language.

[Bauglir]

brb, inventing time travel.

[Darvi]

Since when are lad and bloke curse words? oO

[shadenight123]

me neither. i was referring to how you said that "lad and bloke" since they were as archaic as the greek tragedy/comedy could be used as fitting substitutes without causing harm to the script.
point is, you're more likely to find a curse than a "lad" or "bloke"

Woah, so every single word in every single Greek conversation was a curse, and they never addressed each other at all?

you'd be surprised.
i'm sure i can find something somewhere...
they did address each other though, and they even had to follow rigid ways of speaking, so it was like 75% of a tragedy already railed, and only 25% left to the author.

[Truean]

In the UK, hate crimes that can be proven to have a motive linked to transgender individuals will suffer double the penalty than regular old fashioned hate crimes. Reported widley in media this morning.

Cant work out if I feel "good - bigoted idiots deserve punishment" or "bad - arent all hate crimes evil?"

Yeah, I feel the same way really. Dunno if I can give an unbiased account of if crimes against transgender people are somehow "worse" than others.Clearly they feel that way to me, but no surprise there. Ideally, it would at least depend on if you committed the crime against someone and they just so happened to be a member of a minority group, or if you did it specifically because they were that minority group.

Classically there are reasons for punishment in justice:
Vengeance: which is now disfavored, allegedly
Retribution: replaced vengeance as "their just deserts."
Incapacitation: lock them up and they can't commit future crimes.
Deterrence: in two flavors:
General: As a warning to the general public not to do whatever the crime is.
Specific: As a warning to the specific defendant not to do it again
Rehabilitation: To sort of treat the defendant to not do it again. To reform. Fallen out of favor.
Utilitarianism: Societal benefit

I wonder how you'd classify hate crimes in this framework. I'd imagine they're going for deterrence primarily, or maybe retribution? All of the above? Hum. I don't know.

[Levi]

Rehabilitation/Deterrence seems to fit. 

Rehab:  Maybe they will understand why they are being punished, and thus change their behavior.
Deter:  Maybe they won't understand, but figure out that they should stop doing it so that they don't get punished. 

[kaijyuu]

Unintentional insults can be bad too! I'm still going to get a little bothered by people calling things "gay" even if they don't mean to be homophobic.

I'd personally say that calling something gay is inherantly homophobic. It's implying that being gay is a negative thing.

"Gay" is an interesting word in this regard due to it's dual (triple?) meaning.

First off, words evolve. The original meaning of a word can become irrelevant (gay doesn't mean happy anymore to most people). That the negative connotation of the word stemmed from homophobia is rather irrelevant, because in the end the speaker is just intending to say something's "bad." Thus I do not think it is inherently homophobic when used in a negative context (though definitely could be, and probably most often is).

It certainly can fall under miscommunication though, which is a good enough reason to censor yourself from using it. The reason of course is due to it's dual meaning; an idiot, when hearing both definitions, can equate them, and thus it's reasonable to think that a listener might misinterpret. If you call something you don't like "gay," the listener could reasonably think you're equating it to homosexuals.

Your intention might not be to insult, but that's why miscommunication is miscommunication. And of course, if the listener can equate the two meanings, so can a speaker, so using the word in the above fashion could very well be intended to be insulting to homosexuals.


This will be a problem until the two meanings are completely decoupled. So yeah, I'd never say something is "gay" when I mean bad myself.