I can be pretty raunchy with language sometimes can’t I? Once in a while I say “Fuck this…” and “Humping that….” Shame on me! I’m going to try not to do it too much but just humor me once in a while ok?
No, I don’t typically utter expletives like a sailor. But every once in a while I just let it go. I decided at some point back that my own blog would be as real as I could make it.
A colleague of mine at the college was giving me lesson plans for the class one day and she just naturally started spouting expletives and then apologized, “Sorry, I hope you don’t mind I swear a lot….”. I replied, “Shit, …I don’t mind” I found it kind of refreshing and honest actually. It certainly livened up the lesson plans!
What I find more amusing are the people who cover themselves up…you know, like you KNOW they’re swearing but they’ll type up funny symbols? “F@%&*” & “Sh@^” That annoys me more then it should. We all KNOW what you’re saying, but somehow scrambling up your words with all these symbols makes it better?
Why do I even care? Well, it’s still something I think as I designer I gotta keep it in mind. The power of linguistics & symbolism plays a sizable role in how we might do our work. How language might be expressed in any of my client’s work is something to watch out for. If I do a street brochure with a huge word “FUCK” printed on the front of it, you can be sure it’ll get more attention then it would without it. Negative attention surely, but it’s attention nonetheless.
I read an interested column lately in one of my magazines. It mentioned how there’s a new swear word out now that’s getting to be a big fad because you can get away with it. If you’ve watched Battlestar Galactica lately you’ll know what word this is. “Frak”. As in, “Get the frak outta here!”
They say people are starting to say this in the workplace now and it’s shown up a couple times on TV without it running into any trouble with the censors. Simply because it’s a softer sounding word? Linguists are looking at this and concluding that clearly it isn’t necessarily the meaning of this word “Fuck” that offends people (because Frak means the same thing), but it’s how it LOOKS or SOUNDS that makes the difference.
Frakking interesting eh?
LoweStudio Inc was founded by me, Raphael Lowe, a Honolulu based illustrator and web designer. I presently design and manage a few dozen commercial websites, but my main focus these days is acting as the head developer for Kapiolani Community College and teaching