Words Hurt

OMG i am totes ova this whole blog thingy. it is sooo annoying 2 hav 2 do 1 every week, & i just cant be fucked anymore :/

While there may be a tiny shred of truth in the above comment (It can get tenuous, but it is actually rather refreshing compared to the endless stream of essays for my other subjects), it is utterly inappropriate to mention in this blog. Talking in such a vulgar, informal way is not suitable for the particular genre of these blogs. Text talk, which was established in the CMC movement of last week, would be only be acceptable in backstage sites like facebook, and the extreme misuse of grammar will hopefully only be found in primary school children. Also, use of profanities such as “fuck” is certainly not appropriate for frontstage academic writings.

This demonstrates that there is a time and place for expletives, epithets, profanity and ‘rudeness’. Since we have socially constructed meaning to certain words with symbolic interactionism, we can’t just blurt out any word we want in any situation, for fear of a social death. The metaphor Andy uses (which I think is awesome) is Harry Potter spells. These words actually mean something more than a syntactic organisation of letters. While not to the extent of magical side effects, words today still mean something depending on the context they are put in based on social interpretations.

 An interesting point about this topic is that words or phrases can have complete opposite meanings between backstage and frontstage. For instance, swearing in a frontstage setting can lead to alienation and only politeness is accepted. On the other hand, politeness in a backstage setting can actually create distance, while swearing can break the ice and create a more equal relationship (i.e. swearing around ‘mates’).