Bucky Badgering
I am so glad that there is a school, and a student fanbase, in the Big Ten Conference, like Wisconsin. And that we are not that school.
From UW law (and Michigan under-grad) Prof. Ann Althouse's blog:
Quelling an obscene chant by threatening to take away UW football's greatest tradition: the "Jump Around."
October 24th, 2013 at 1:16 PM ^
Wisconsin students in general (marching band included) seem to try way too hard to be "edgy." I guess they feel they need to overcompensate for their state's reputation as a boring dailyland.
October 24th, 2013 at 1:13 PM ^
Thank goodness Michigan has never had any issues with obscene chats at a sporting event. Now, I'm off to buy a truckload of windex. It sure is a lot of work keeping my glass house clean.
October 24th, 2013 at 1:16 PM ^
Not sure why you have all those windows when you live under a rock...
October 24th, 2013 at 1:39 PM ^
If you consider "You suck" as obscene, then I'm not sure we can even have a discussion on the subject.
Now, hockey on the other hand ...
October 24th, 2013 at 1:40 PM ^
Yes, it was the old hockey penalty chant that I was referring to. I haven't made it to a game in a while... did they finally get that one squashed?
October 24th, 2013 at 1:46 PM ^
they've only added to that chant... it gets longer and longer every time i hear it.
October 24th, 2013 at 2:36 PM ^
Nope, the Athletic Department gave up trying to quell that. Now the Pep Band just plays over it every time an opponent goes to the Penalty Box.
October 24th, 2013 at 1:45 PM ^
...the entire Michigan hockey-cheer thing was after I stopped regularly attending games at Yost (which was in the early days of its repurposing as a hockey venue). I never got the whole, elaborate-and-sometimes-filthy (?) hockey cheer routines. I sort of miss the days when Yost crowds were measured in the hundreds, it was $5 or $10 to see a game, and it was not too hard to sneak in several beers in the pockets of your down jacket. I just wanted to watch the hockey from a good seat and enjoy a couple of illicit beers.
October 24th, 2013 at 1:47 PM ^
Sorry the rabid fanbase and one-of-a-kind atmosphere got in the way of your drinking.
October 24th, 2013 at 1:55 PM ^
What a nerd.
October 24th, 2013 at 1:58 PM ^
upvote Bando Calrissian 50 random times in the future to compensate for this gem. ^^^
October 24th, 2013 at 3:58 PM ^
October 24th, 2013 at 1:19 PM ^
ha - loved putting that Madison tag on it ... makes the You Suck chant sound like elementary school. Pretty sad to see the blog comments supporting their "eat shit" and "fuck you" chants. Indefensible to me ... but then again WTF do I know /s
Go Blue!
October 24th, 2013 at 1:21 PM ^
I had to dig around to figure out just what the hell you're talking about here, but this is about "Eat Shit/Fuck You," right?
A close relative of "First Down Bitch!" up at Michigan State, but a far cry from the relatively tame "You Suck."
October 24th, 2013 at 1:36 PM ^
Having been to Camp Randall a bunch of times (but not in the last couple of years), I just presumed automatically that it was the "Fuck you!/Eat shit!" chant. And while Althouse is uncharacteristically (she a kind of a fascination for bad words) vague on the specifics of the chant, it has to be that one.
"You suck!" could be part of a broadcast television script in prime-time, right? Incomparably more tame than "Fuck you!" or "Eat shit!"
I actually liked a lot of repartee in the Althouse comments.
October 24th, 2013 at 2:34 PM ^
The funny thing about it is that it isn't even original - the Bleacher Creatures used to chant this at Tiger Stadium in the mid-1980s, right around the time that Miller Lite had the "Tastes Great, Less Filling" campaign. Granted, college football is not the MLB, but I think that the club even shut down the bleachers for a time as something of a reprimand as a result, although it might have been for some of the other stuff that went on in the upper deck.
October 24th, 2013 at 8:24 PM ^
Now that was a funny chant, back in the day when the students would do it!
October 24th, 2013 at 1:49 PM ^
Michigan State is capable of first downs?
October 24th, 2013 at 1:27 PM ^
Jesus christ who cares. Their kids would probably hear "shit" and "fuck" walking down the street, at school, or probably even their own household. When the student sections yells that stuff, it's barely even discernible from a loudly yelled world. A kid probably won't be able to know what word is being said unless the kid's like 2 feet away.
October 24th, 2013 at 1:40 PM ^
...that you have never been to a game at Camp Randall. Am I right about that?
October 24th, 2013 at 2:36 PM ^
October 24th, 2013 at 3:35 PM ^
I moved to Madison recently and have been to Camp Randall 4 times in the last couple of years. I don't care where you are in the stadium there's no doubt what being said in the chant. My wife and I have already decided that we can't bring the grandkids to the game because of it. Too bad, because outside of that nonsense, it's a great gameday experience.
October 24th, 2013 at 8:45 PM ^
October 25th, 2013 at 11:03 AM ^
First grade? No way.
My recollection is that no one dared use swear words until 5th grade and even then it was just a few troublemakers. Swearing became more general in middle school.
October 24th, 2013 at 1:35 PM ^
swearing.
i literally cannot comprehend how a person can be offended by a swear word.
now, i understand why people conflate swear words with derrogatory homophobic and racial slurs: the masses are dumb and don't pick up on even the most subtle nuance.
but being offended by swear words in a vacuum...i just don't get it.
October 24th, 2013 at 1:38 PM ^
...We should just ban all of the speech that you find offensive, and quit worrying about the rest. That is so easy. Why didn't I think of that?
Lulz.
October 24th, 2013 at 1:56 PM ^
but, things i find easy to comprehend: a black person being offended by a racial slur. or a gay person being offended by a homophobic slur. or a random person being offended by a person using a slur that other people would find offensive (it's called empathy).
things i find hard to comprehend: any human being offended by the words fuck or shit.
October 24th, 2013 at 2:18 PM ^
...if we ever left First Amendment (do you mind me referring to the Constitution?) adjudication up to people (can I refer to you as "people"?) like you. (And by "you," I don't mean that personally, but just as a placeholder for "persons similarly espousing your views.") Peace out.
You actually missed the point almost entirely, so let me help you. You could quite easily suggest that First Amendment issues aren't pertaining at Camp Randall, where the ticketholding patrons are merely licensees, and subject to the rules of the venue; even then, the only "state action" proposed is the non-playing of "Jump Around" by House of Pain. Hardly a state action involving suppression of speech or prior restraint.
And of course lulz, all around. Major, major lulz.
You'd love it in Madison. I really do think that if there were a hint of a homophobia at Badgers games (instead of mass chants of merely foul language), the Chancellor would cancel the fuckin' season.
October 24th, 2013 at 2:50 PM ^
The only point he appears to be making is that he doesn't understand why "swear words" by their general definition are offensive. There was nothing in there about free speech or first amendment rights. Just a guy noting that a particular aspect of this "controversy" doesn't make sense to him (a point which I agree on, by the way). If you want this to turn into a First Amendment debate (and I think it would be a fun and interesting one), you should probably pick a different comment to respond to, otherwise you're just constructing a big-ole straw man.
October 24th, 2013 at 5:10 PM ^
You are truly the worst poster on this site. Bar none.
October 24th, 2013 at 8:32 PM ^
Your calling him out for having a different opinon on the subject but dont you like have a different opinon on the subject?
Stick to things you know, like harping on your RR schtick 3 years later.
October 24th, 2013 at 2:11 PM ^
You don't have to agree with people being offended by swear words but you should be able to comprehend the position.
October 24th, 2013 at 2:33 PM ^
I don't get why swearwords are offensive either. I think that's what makes it an interesting point. disagreements happen all the time, but I just really do not understand why people are offended by standard swear words.
Why is "fuck" really bad and "screw" only kind of bad? Why is "shit" really bad and "crap" only kind of bad? Those pairs of words are basically completely interchangeable in virtually all contexts, yet one of them is universally recognized as inappropriate and one of them is not. Why?
Now I'm not saying we should immediately do away with the idea of swearwords just because I don't understand it, but I am honestly curious if anyone here has actual reasoning as to why some seemingly random words are more offensive than others, outside of "that's just the way it is."
October 24th, 2013 at 3:00 PM ^
It goes back to old notions of class and respectability. Lower-class dialect is generally considered uncouth and shunned by the educated classes, with the lower-class words for sexual acts and human waste being particularly uncouth. (Linguistics fans will note that words of Anglo-Saxon origin are often considered more base than words of Norman French origin, although there are some exceptions.)
You can argue, in a vacuum, that it does not speak well of us to hold these classist views. But society is what it is and these words do cause offense to people, so I don't think I'd want my young children repeating them.
October 24th, 2013 at 3:20 PM ^
granted, i was saying it in a facetious way, but i still stand by my argument.
also, i disagree with your last point. society is not some unchangeable object, it is what we make it.
people these days seem to grasp at straws to find ways to be truly offensive and hurtful to others without shame or guilt. demonizing swear words that are harmless and meaningless semantics is a good way for people to mask truly hateful language, as the two are often conflated to be the same thing.
October 24th, 2013 at 3:49 PM ^
also, i disagree with your last point. society is not some unchangeable object, it is what we make it.I'm pretty sure I can't just "make" society accept swear words with a snap of my fingers. The flipside of all this is that given that swear words are just words, it's also stupid for people to think they're cool and edgy. I don't see the Wisconsin student sections as being cool for cursing each other out. It's brainless. And I say the same about the "You suck" chant.
October 24th, 2013 at 3:56 PM ^
if you people stop believing that meaningless words are hurtful, and stop teaching their children that these meaningless words are hurtful, then maybe people will stop thinking they are cool and edgy. And maybe people will begin to understand that the word shit isn't hurting anyone, but the word faggot is actually hurtful. You can't change society by yourself, but you're certianly not going to instigate change by staying complicit with the status quo.
October 25th, 2013 at 12:06 AM ^
I'll add another theory that is not mutually exclusive to the societal class origin concept - we have lots of words that mean the same thing, right? I think, for a given set of meaningfully redundant words, they vary in numerous attributes - some are more casual or more formal ("hey" vs. "salutations"), more dramatic or more subtle ("smashed" vs. "hit"), more esoteric or more mainstream ("brachiating" vs. "swinging with one's arms"). We need them to have different connotations because when we communicate, we're not just transmitting information; we're also imbuing the information with how we feel about it.
In the same way, I would propose that we need words commonly agreed to be harsh and severe so that we can use them to show that we are extremely angry and intending to offend. Consequently, I'd argue that swear words are offensive because that's what they were made to do - offend. We have strayed from this original function by overusing swear words when we're really not mad, when we're just calmly talking about regular things. I'm not saying this is a bad thing - I enjoy casual swearing, and I am somewhat proud of the combos I've strung together in my time.
But I don't think it's totally nonsensical for one word to be offensive while another word that means the same thing isn't. And that's why.
TL;DR - Totally unscientific conjecturing that swear words for literally invented with the purpose of being offensive.
October 25th, 2013 at 8:08 AM ^
You presented a very good explanation of why/how societies use swear words. What I really think is that as you have suggested is that instead of used for emphasis too many use them very casually in everyday language. This was not their purpose so to those people they have lost that purpose. I would suggest someone who swears in every sentance take a step back and see how many times they actually swear in a day...is it necessary? i.e. did the conversation require that aggressive language?
I would also suggest that this trend to everyday usage is someone regional to some extant. I have traveled around a bit and to be honest, the northeast/East Coast is probably the most "sweary" place I have been around. I honestly think you could be identified as an out of towner if you are not droping F-bombs in every sentance.
I get that some may just be used to swearing but they should be aware that not everyone does it or likes it. The words are offensive as they were intended to be.
October 25th, 2013 at 2:05 PM ^
October 24th, 2013 at 2:59 PM ^
i can comprehend why they are offended--there a many, but mainly just b/c we are raised to think they are offensive. and there are lots of things i don't agree with that many people believe in simply because they were raised a certain way. so, yeah, i should defintely say i comprehend why they feel that way.
October 24th, 2013 at 4:09 PM ^
No, I don't comprehend it.
I have a hard time comprehending the irrational and the illogical.
I comprehend there are people out there that feel offended, but I'll never understand their choice to be offended by it.
October 24th, 2013 at 2:54 PM ^
I think the issue that parents bringing their kids to the games don't want them to have to hear that, and I can't really blame them. I don't know how I'd answer a "Daddy, what are they saying?" question there.
October 24th, 2013 at 3:20 PM ^
This is exactly it, I went to one game last year (Air Force) and the first in many years, my kids heard quite an earful.
I have always had the opposite issue than some of the above posters that is why do so many find it necessary that out of the whole English language, they must use 5 or 6 swear words repetitiously in every single sentence? If you are a college student and can't find adequate words to use in sentences other than swear words, I think you are limiting your vocabulary.
October 24th, 2013 at 3:26 PM ^
"Violent coitus to all of your partisans!"
I like it!
October 24th, 2013 at 3:50 PM ^
<golf clap> Well played </golf clap>