bullshit

[pibbur who]

It is the first time I hear that bullshit is considering profanity.

But I'm not surprised, there are people that gets offended by everything these days. You can't even call blind people blind anymore where I live, it's apparently pejorative.

Actually, for "Bullshit", I think its's the opposite. I guess it was considered worse in earlier days, but has become more and more part of day-to-day language, so many people don't consider it bad anymore. Not all of them, though, so it's not uniformly "clean". Same with many profanities.

As I said, in Norwegian "Faen" is a profanity, a name for Satan. When I grew up in the sixties, you never heard it on TV or radio. Not so anymore, it's become more and more commonly used, so I guess a huge fraction, perhaps even the majority of Norwegians don't consider it bad language now.

As for people who are blind not wanting to be called blind people, people with mental disabilities not wanting to be called retarded, black people not wanting to be called negros and similar, it's to some degree a matter of decency. I choose not to have an opinion on how a group of people want to be named, I just change my use of words. After all, in many cases terms have been, still are, used as insults, or to make fun of people.

One example: Here on the watch, we've had several users finding it funny to call a certain game "Tranny". So I don't find it weird if transsexuals don't like that term.

OTOH, it can be hard to stay updated with what terms are considered pejorative or not, so I think people should give some slack. If I used a word considered pejorative, it may very well be because I didn't know, so a friendly correction could be more in place than hostility. There is also the issue that in many cases there's a consensus about what words to use.

pibbur who don't mind being called pibbur.

 

[azarhal]

Actually, for "Bullshit", I think its's the opposite. I guess it was considered worse in earlier days, but has become more and more part of day-to-day language, so many people don't consider it bad anymore. Not all of them, though, so it's not uniformly "clean". Same with many profanities.

pibbur who don't mind being called pibbur.

So you are saying I'm not old enough, lol.

Although, in my case, it's more that I have only seen it used to mean "false/not true" which doesn't seems that profane to me. It's also an "imported" word and we got way more profane stuff in our vocabulary.

 

[Kordanor]

In my perception bullshit isn't exactly extreme profanity, but it is extremely offensive if used in the "right" context.

If your boss tells you, that you should wash the car even though it's raining outside, you might tell him, that this is stupid. I think saying "This is bullshit!", is pretty much the the worst you can say to let him know about how you think that the assignment is horrible and he is an idiot to give it, without directly insulting him by saying "you are an idiot and your assignments are shit"

With that I think it's pretty much on the brink of being directly offensive.