[TV orNotTV] Semi-OT: UK's Ofcom Publishes Offensive Language on TV/Radio Report

[Adam Bowie]

Every so often, Ofcom  - essentially the UK version of the FCC - publishes a report into public attitudes towards language on TV and radio. 

This isn't *their* take on what's offensive. It's what audiences find offensive, and how offensive specific words are.

As you might know, we have something called the 9pm watershed in the UK, which means that stronger language can't be used before 9pm on free-to-air networks. Behind paywalls, the rules are looser, and of course in the streaming environment, there aren't cut-offs like that.

Anyway, Ofcom have tabulated offensive words in a number of categories, and what I find especially interesting is that in the "Strong" category, there are many more offensive words referring to someone's race or gender/sexual identity than there are in the more "traditional" sex/bodyparts category. 

For a really deep dive, Ofcom has also gone into non-English language used by some South Asian speakers, as well as language used to talk about people's political affiliations (e.g. "snowflake"). The latter are nearly all considered to be in the least offensive "mild" category.

Anyway, sociologically and linguistically interesting.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0021/225336/offensive-language-summary-report.pdf

Adam

[Doug Eastick]

I learned some new words.... that I didn't need to know.

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Doug Eastick <eas...@mcd.on.ca>

[Kevin M.]

Semi related, but in the Russian language, their words for pink and sky blue double as slang for lesbian and gay, respectively. There’s an American movie featuring a bar/club supposedly run by the Russian mob called (in Russian) the Pink Rose… Russians giggle at this, as no self respecting mob boss would be seen at a lesbian bar. 

I can’t imagine anybody ever filed a formal complaint about it. 

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Kevin M. (RPCV)