Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Dammit

OK, I was plenty embarrassed by the 0% rating on the cuss-o-meter, but now certain bloggers — among my favorites, as if the knife needs twisting (or "needs twisted" for you mostly Midlands speakers) — have started to tease me about it. See here and here. Saintly? (OK, maybe that wasn't meant badly, but that shoe doesn't fit!) "Wisconsin goody two-shoes!"?

Just for the record, in real life, I utter a constant stream of obscenities. Just this morning I was — no kidding — hollering a set of things to a whole group of people that would get you banned from radio. Not in anger or anything, but it was the right thing to do in the circumstances. It seems like a pseudonymous blogger who is foul-mouthed in real life would light up the meter on the web. I'm as baffled as anybody. Cripes.

But there's been a big dust-up over on ScienceBlog about pseudonymous blogging and authority. More on that later.

Image from here. It was time to get away from album covers.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Zounds! 'Twas a joke, dear sir.

Anonymous said...

Ah, fiddlesticks. Is there any gol-darned excuse for tempting us with a heckuva Science Blog rumble then making us freakin' find it ourselves with nary a link to even the blog, for gosh sakes?

For my own vaguely anonymous and nearly FCC-safe blogging, I've entertained the theory that it's justified by Darwinian adaptation. Specifically, given the abundance of foul-mouthed over-the-top rants out there, I may stand a better chance of survival as an even-tempered voice of reason, even if it has nothing to do with my offline persona.

Mr. Verb said...

Sorry, Nancy, I shoulda known.

And syz, I will do my best to get to the other deal. Your point about survival is a good one and I've probably done that, if only half-consciously. Anyway, sorry for not at least providing a link!

Anonymous said...

Dude, you're letting GIRLS call you soft?

TootsNYC said...

We had a long discussion once at work about the word "cussing."

I maintain that "cussing" is not a synonym for "cursing."

My position is:

heck / hell = cussing / cursing

Or,

frick = cussing
fuck = cursing


Cussing, to me, has always meant saying euphemisms for curse words.

Mr. Verb said...

Hmmmm. You know, that's not my own usage, but that sounds very familiar. So, I should be high on the cuss-o-meter but low on the curse-o-meter. Thanks!