Topics Language

Question What are we doing when we censor expletives? Even when a person's speech has been censored (on the TV airing of an R-rated film, say), it's often perfectly clear exactly what he is saying or intends to convey. In this sense the content and meaning of the speaker's explicit speech is completely intact--so what exactly is being censored?

Accepted:
April 22, 2010

Comments

As you say, even those of us not trained in reading lips can often make out what is being said. So all that is censored is the actual sound of the word(s) being spoken. Don't ask me why people find this comforting or morally improving. In my view, most allegedly bad language is simply in bad taste. Etiquette is not the same as morality, no matter how vigilantly it is someetimes enforced. Of course, not all bad language is simply bad taste--hate speech actually is immoral, I think. And I also would allow that the border between hate speech and other "bad" language (e.g. certain obscenities) can be somewhat blurry. So *+#!~+%$* that!