Quote:
Originally Posted by j.p.s
Is that what the UK store FCUK is up to?
As to why some posters use '**', some forum software has block lists for words.
As to why there is squeamishness for some words when equivalents are OK, I think it dates back to Anglo Saxon derived words being considered crude and vulgar and French derived words being considered more suitable for polite company.
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I think that is an excellent point. I have a similar theory about why artists believe that Fine Art is noble, but that commercial art is dirty, done for filthy lucre, only, and therefore unworthy and beneath them.
I blame the early Christian Church, which
ripped off, er, encouraged masons and other craftspeople and artists, to donate their stuff for the Glory of God, rather than paying them for the value. I think that this promulgated that (ridiculous) belief that art created (or books written) for the soul, for the spirt, are noble and worthy, but art created for, say, an ad agency at the direction of another, or a book written in genre fiction, with its purpose
to sell, are lower forms of life, unworthy creations tainted by the ordurous
MONEY.
The Church basically instilled this belief far and wide, enabling
them to obtain a lot of work for very little money and a ton of fine artworks, ditto--but it's been retained, throughout history, as if sitting down to write a novel in cozy mysteries or romances is something of which to be ashamed. That some book written as
Literary Fiction is by its mere existence, better, finer,
nobler than say, Agatha Christie or hell, Dan Brown. Better than Stephen King or Robert B. Parker (rest his soul) or the like.
It's utter
balderdash. I mean, the real distinction is what--intent? So if Suzie sits down and writes her novel, as LitFic, but it catches on and sells a million copies, it's great LitFic and
Fine Art, but if Fred sits down and pens his work intending it to be action-adventure and it catches on and sells a million copies, it's "just" genre fiction? And not as good, as fine, as noble as Suzie's book? What a load.
So, yes, I find the English versus French explanation quite feasible. Why
not?
Hitch