I can't swear to it, but.....

[david in sweden]

after the John Terry case...it looks as though the FA is about to embark on a new witch hunt against the use of foul and abusive language.

Not that I am against that in principle. As a teacher of English for many years, I have always pointed out to clients and students the background to some of the words thay have picked up - mainly from TV/movies - and freely use without actually comprehending their real meaning. Obviously some words like bl***y and f**k have a history dating back to the Middle Ages and have grown up with the language, and needless to say many people - not least footballers - may have grown up in a home/school environment where such language is commonplace...and an " accepted " form of communication. It's not easy to suddenly re-educate someone who has an established form of speech which is short of adjectives and dominated by expletives in every sentence. I've met quite a few such people ...over a period of many years, and my wife has the bad fortune to have a colleague (a pleasant enough and cheerful guy) who freely uses swear words that he picked in his military service decades ago.

 

The prospect of eliminating bad language from the tense atmosphere of an important Premier League game, when a lot of off-the-ball incidents can go unnoticed, sounds like an extra challenge for referees who still can't award a goal every time but are now expected to listen for abusive language from a similar distance. ....and will a player who has been illegally brought down for a penalty and expressed his feelings in strong language be suddenly red-carded before he has the chance to take the justifiable penalty that follows?

 

Even if we can say that we don't (normally) swear - what is your reaction if ; you hit your thumb with a hammer...someone knocks your drink over in the pub, or another driver cuts you up on the motorway? Ouch !.or silly fool ?..and what exactly "qualifies " itself as a swear word.

 

I'm sure the Mods on here have to make individual judgements in some cases, but will the FA now issue all match officials with a list of forbidden utterances....in multiple languages....as we have so many foreign players nowadays ?

 

Will managers in future have to analyse the vocabulary of potential signings before paying out several millions in transfer fee for fear of having the player suspended every other week, for what was....years ago...called " violence of the tongue "

Many times I have heard " bad language " coming from the crowd, and even on occasions.. from the bench...will there now be new rules for this too?

 

I for one do not condone swearing, though I have to admit, that...in the heat of the moment....I don't always count to 10 before expressing my innermost feelings. I can only hope that referees - especially those fond of cautioning players a lot....can use some common sense when interpreting some utterances in different situations, otherwise a number of teams may find themselves finishing matches with less than 11 players on the pitch - on a regular basis.

Edited 16 July, 2012 by david in sweden

[suewhistle]

English ones come from Anglo-Saxon, OE, northern European roots, can't think of any latinate ones off the top of my head. According to David Crystal there are over 700 euphemisms for the word c***. As he points out, and as ever with language, context is important and we tend to be influenced by group swearing patterns. The different language I use when I have a technical problem compared with when mum is around a case in point. "Bloody" is so common in Australia that it isn't even considered a swear word any more.

 

Oh sugar, must go, think I've burnt the bread...

[paulwantsapint]

The FA will have to teach officials to speak every single language in the world with so many different nationalities now playing in our leagues or otherwise face the risk of being racist, for arguement sake due to punishing a player for using an english expletive but not punishing an italian expletive

[CanadaSaint]

The FA will have to teach officials to speak every single language in the world with so many different nationalities now playing in our leagues or otherwise face the risk of being racist, for arguement sake due to punishing a player for using an english expletive but not punishing an italian expletive

 

I seem to recall dear old Joe Mercer saying that someone at a world cup had been sent off for "violence of the tongue."

 

If that's where things are going we're going to end up with some six-a-sides.

[Professor]

The odd thing about the John Terry case is that it seems it may not be a crime to call a person any of the well established noun swear words associated with sexual parts and bodily functions but it may be crime to use an adjective about a person that they would use about themselves! I am white and I can tell people that fact. And if someone wishes to verbally abuse me they can do so as long as they don't add the adjective 'White' to the swear word, although if the person doing the abusing is white themselves, that may not be a crime. On the other hand if the person abusing me is black, it may be a crime for them to call me white, just as John Terry, being white, was accused of calling someone black. Is it just me, or is the law stupid. Surely, its one thing to abuse a person for being different, but quite another thing to refer to differences just as an add-on to an insult. For a group of Englishmen to go out to pick on Welsh people, for example, and to taunt them for being sheep-****gers is something one can understand the law dealing with, but for two grown men who are trading insults to be charged with an offence for each referring to the other's Englishness or Welshness, seems a strange use of the law.

[Deano6]

What I took from the Terry case was quite the contrary - foul and abusive language on the football pitch is accepted as part of the norms and nobody really had a problem with it...its just the racism that was this issue.

 

I also find Professor's post above strange that he is trying to argue against the existence of racial slurs or their severity. I bet he also complains about the MOBOs and about how there would be outrage if there was a white equivalent.

[JPTCount]

its easy to write a law that is down to whether the referee finds the language offensive, as is the case with porn and policemen.

 

and swearing in frustration, or as an adjective is very different to telling someone to **** off, or calling then a ****. the fact that Rooney gets away with saying '**** off Phil' to Mr Dowd and gets away with it us disgusting imo.

 

and it doesnt matter what language u find acceptable or have grown up with, its about the situation, and the audience. I swear alot myself, but I dont swear around kids, or should I tell said kids parents that if I find it acceptable then it's acceptable for the kid to hear?

[The9]

As we're discussing semantics, the Laws of the Game no longer refer to "foul and abusive" language, they refer to "using offensive, insulting or abusive language and/or gestures".

 

So you can be as foul as you like, as long as it's not offensive, insulting or abusive. That implies to me that general swearing is fine - provided that it's not directed at someone.

[mynameisthehulk]

The odd thing about the John Terry case is that it seems it may not be a crime to call a person any of the well established noun swear words associated with sexual parts and bodily functions but it may be crime to use an adjective about a person that they would use about themselves! I am white and I can tell people that fact. And if someone wishes to verbally abuse me they can do so as long as they don't add the adjective 'White' to the swear word, although if the person doing the abusing is white themselves, that may not be a crime. On the other hand if the person abusing me is black, it may be a crime for them to call me white, just as John Terry, being white, was accused of calling someone black. Is it just me, or is the law stupid. Surely, its one thing to abuse a person for being different, but quite another thing to refer to differences just as an add-on to an insult. For a group of Englishmen to go out to pick on Welsh people, for example, and to taunt them for being sheep-****gers is something one can understand the law dealing with, but for two grown men who are trading insults to be charged with an offence for each referring to the other's Englishness or Welshness, seems a strange use of the law.

 

This!

[derry]

So filling in the Census form is now a racist offence.

[david in sweden]

its easy to write a law that is down to whether the referee finds the language offensive, as is the case with porn and policemen. and swearing in frustration, or as an adjective is very different to telling someone to **** off, or calling then a ****. the fact that Rooney gets away with saying '**** off Phil' to Mr Dowd and gets away with it us disgusting imo.

and it doesnt matter what language u find acceptable or have grown up with, its about the situation, and the audience.

I swear alot myself, but I dont swear around kids, or should I tell said kids parents that if I find it acceptable then it's acceptable for the kid to hear?

 

 

..it's the " frustration factor "that is the real problem. It's one thing to use a word in (anger/frustration) but another issue if you aim the comment at someone in particular. Spontaneous reactions often cause problems -especially if you don't know who is in earshot. The biggest problem may well be those players with limited vocabulary, and the rest is swear words.

 

It will take a sensible ref. to decide when to book and when to turn the "other ear ". There are enough stoppages in games at present we don't need more excuses to stop the flow of play.

Edited 17 July, 2012 by david in sweden