Secret Squirrel Comments On Anti Swearing Laws.

It has come to the attention of Secret Squirrel that there have been and are and are being made, certain laws, laws concerning profanity, in short swearing. Lets' examine some specific developments of laws concerning swearing, and the issue of swearing as such.

Residents of Middleborough, Massachussets were fed up with swearing in public.  So, by a vote of 183 to 50, they decided in a public meeting to impose a fine of $20 for public profanity.   How do you think such a regulation might go over in your locality?

Apparently the law must still be approved by the state's attorney general before it goes into effect.  If approved, local police could issue tickets to offenders -- just as for other minor infractions.

One big hurdle the law will likely have to surmount is determining which words are actually swearing.  Is that something which individual police officers may constitutionally be permitted to determine?

As Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote in the case of Cohen v. California,  "One man's vulgarity is another man's lyric."
Well what is swearing, what is profanity?Profanity,is also known as swearing, cursing, foul speech, strong language, dirty words, cussing, bad words, bad language, adult language, or simply language, is pejorative language that shows disrespect, desecration or debasement. Profanity can take the form of words, expressions, gestures (such as flipping the middle finger), or other social behaviors that are construed or interpreted as insulting, rude, vulgar, obscene, obnoxious, foul, desecrating, or other forms.Profane language is by no means a recent phenomenon. The Bible sometimes uses strong language, such as mention of men who "eat their own dung, and drink their own piss" in the Authorized King James Version of 1611's close translation of Hebrew text of 2 Kings 18:27.

Shakespeare is replete with vulgarisms, though many are no longer readily recognized. Even the oldest traces of human writing include swear words.

There is a certain four-letter word that evokes much emotion, is often uttered by mothers giving birth, and whose usage by humans is thought to be evolutionarily adaptive: f___!

According to a new study by British researchers, saying the F word or any other commonly used expletive can work to reduce physical pain — and it seems
that people may use curse words by instinct. Indeed, as any owner of a banged shin, whacked funny bone or stubbed toe knows, dancing the agony jig —
and shouting its profane theme tune — are about as automatic as the response to a doctor's reflex hammer.The joy in unleashing an artful string of profanity is something that great minds have always relished, none less than Mark Twain who said "If I cannot swear in heaven I shall not stay there."

Twain knew that abuse is a high art, an alchemy of timing, intonation and le mot juste.Start with Shakespeare by all means,billed as the most artisicly intellectual master of the english language, swore like a sailor's parrot, and his plays contained the same as well,indeed the Globe Theatre was where it was due to the use of swearing by all the actors. In those days swearing was of a religious nature, not mostly as a sexual one is nowadays. For example they used ,as well still do but have forgotten, zooks,speficaly gad zooks, which in Shakespeare's day was the horrific God's Hooks as it were, referencing the nails of Jesus....and there was Swblood or God's Blood.The Frenchmen of the day are mostly religious oriented with words like Tabernac, referring to Tabernacle,the alos use colloquials such as moudzy fou as it is pronounced, actually meaning maudit fou,or in translation simply badly spoken of mental case,but to THEM it is a horrific swearing expression.Words words words.....swear words, what actually constitutes a swear word and
when.......by definition.
Years ago, a missionary shared the following story with me. He was at a service in Australia, and his wife was sick. He simply told the congregation that his wife was “under the weather.” The congregation looked shocked, so he immediately retorted “but she’s perking up now.” At that point the pastor of the church (who had spent time in the US) got up and told the guy, “In Australia, ‘under the weather’ means that she is slobbering drunk, and ‘perking up’ means that she is throwing up.”In another story a woman from the states had gotten a hotel room and the bellboy
asked if she wanted him to knock her up in the morning. Which meant to give her a wake up call or knock on the door to wake her up but of course to her that meant to get her pregnant.A missionary from the states was in Australia and he’d had a great meal with his hosts. Afterward he said, “I’m stuffed!” and they laughed at him because to them stuffed meant pregnant.Americans use the term fanny pack for a pack worn about the waist to carry things in, but for them too fanny means arse,in Britain and Australia, fanny means a woman's genitals.So swearing goes by definition of acceptability and shifts from one persons version of english to another dependant on the nation one is or is not in,and, of ourse, each has words and phrases unique to their cultural environment which constitute swearing as such.The bottom line is profanity laws differ by state,by nation,and what's acceptable in one state,or one nation, may land you in jail in another.Who knows, who knew...In early America, laws banning profanity were based on religion. Back
then, serious infractions involved breaking the biblical commandment to honor God's name and laws against profanity often banned using God's name "in vain."

In 1775, General George Washington banned cursing among his troups and required church attendance. Demands like this prompted Judge Zephaniah Swift, in
1796, to declare the government unable to punish a person on religious violation alone, that person must be disturbing the peace as well.Is 'No Cussing' Law Constitutional?The following is the text of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of
the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Since then, the U.S. Supreme Court has stated that the context in which the allegedly profane language is spoken generally decides whether the language
is protected by the First Amendment.Acceptance of profanity evolves over time,and so too does it evolve and change definitionally, What was once a bad
word may now be common language.However, cursing is still not considered socially acceptable. ABC's John Stossel reports 48% of Americans are still offended by profanity,but then 52%,the majority,there for,aren't.

Growing up, they teach you that swearing is a bad habit — but no one ever explained why it was a bad habit for so many people. If swearing has negative
social repercussions — and certainly in some social situations it still does — then why are people compelled to do it?

Well Police in Middleborough won’t be able to write tickets for swearing in public until the state attorney general’s office determines if the new bylaw is constitutional. That process could take months, and at least one person thinks the new bylaw might not go into effect.

Selectman Stephen McKinnon told The Enterprise of Brockton that his gut feeling was that the attorney general wouldn’t OK the bylaw. He said good behavior and common courtesy can’t be legislated.

Residents in Middleborough last week voted to approve a proposal from the police chief to impose a $20 fine on public profanity.Officials say the proposal wasn’t intended to censor casual or private conversations, but instead to crack down on loud, profanity-laden language used by teens and other young people in the downtown area and public parks.

But swearing does have a place in the psyche of man.In July 2009, scientists at Keele University in the UK concluded that swearing can help reduce pain. In fact, it was found that those who swore in reaction to pain could endure pain 50 percent longer than those who didn’t swear.But there is opposition to swearing so much so there are laws against it.

There's more though to be consdiered.If you visit Virginia Beach today, you’ll along Atlantic Avenue, its main strip, signs that say “No Swearing” or “No Profanity.”These signs aren’t just friendly reminders—they are actually the law!

The “No Cursing” Law was put in place in the early 1990’s in Virginia Beach as part of a “Beach Behavior Campaign” meant for the community and local police to keep a handle on any wild behavior.

When you’re vacationing in Virginia Beach today, you’ll see police chaplains patrolling the Oceanfront, the boardwalk, and Atlantic Avenue areas to ensure that youth and teens are following the No Cursing or No Profanity Law.

One example we found of an enforcement of this rule, known as a Class 4 misdemeanor: A 15-year-old girl who had been caught using a four-letter word
stringed multiple times throughout a sentence received a ticket: $250 and 10 days of community service.

A hundred year old Michigan state criminal law against cussing in front of women and children.All states have laws concerning and dealing with profanity,used,abused and or ignored dependant on whatever,wheresoever and however.

Based on a series of cases decided by the Supreme Court in the early 1970s, it is clear that the use of profanity is protected speech under the First Amendment, at least when the profanity is used as part of the political message. The most famous of these cases was Cohen vs. California, in which a man was prosecuted for walking through the courthouse wearing a jacket that said "F*ck the Draft," referring to the military draft during the war in Vietnam. The Court held that the profanity used in that case was protected speech. In the other cases, the Court left open the possibility that the government could properly criminalize offensive profanity not connected with a particular message, but the Court overturned the specific convictions for generalized profanity because the government had not sustained its heavy burden of writing a law that would not apply to and chill protected speech. Such legal drafting is so difficult that, in practice, it is probably impossible to criminalize plain profanity without restricting protected speech that contains profanity.

In Victoria, Australia, State legislature passed an anti-swearing law.Critics of the law say it is an attack on free speech, a revenue raising and an attempt to act to bolster the Government’s law and order credentials allowing police to issue on-the-spot fines of up to $A240 (£158) for language that is indecent, disorderly, offensive or threatening. 

The anti-swearing legislation doesn't define what a 'swear-word' actually is. This gives the police extraordinary power to use these laws in discriminatory way.However the laws are much too broad,and what is disturbing they can be used, and abused. While they define profanity and swearing and the laws reference to that definition,one man's swear word is another man's ordinary,everyday. Ponder for example, a Disney character, the Genie, in,the film,cartoon,Alladin...he frequently uses the expletive, but evidently acceptable term, word,"Crimmini........the name of a mushroom, but the obvious taken reference in his use of the expletive, is as.a swear word. The series Battlestar Galactica, made up it's own for use as well,"Fellgercarb." So is and ,are ,those included in the definition, legal, of swearing, The laws define, but fail to.provide and exact list of terms and words, which constitute swearing, terms which would be in violation of and said and stated law.in short, either the law is clear and well and properly defined for all to see and know, including the list of violating "swear" words, or there had best be no law at all.