What the Fuck Happened to Decency Standards at Ivy League Dailies?
I like cursing in print - or in blog form - as much as the next guy. But as for the shitass Ivy League Dailies who look to the Grey Lady for guidance and inspiration, why on Earth do they like cursing so much? And more importantly, to what effect?
To no effect, friends. A brief search-and-survey of the dailies reveals language that your parents might find, well, a bit uncomfortable. The dailies print "fuck" and "shit" for no good or extenuating reason, sometimes in the form of short pornographic stories. Most of the time they use these words without even the saving grace of direct quotation. Read these brief excerpts and you'll be soon asking yourself what the fuck has happened to our storied dailies.
Our friend Anthony Kelley at The Spec:
"Some folks were ready to fuck him up."
From The Cornell Daily Sun:
"I've evolved to fuck, shit, and eat, but it's odd that
while I'm doing these basic things I have the ability
to think."
The Daily Pennsylvanian (taking the cursing cake!):
You want to fuck the shit out of a group of high
schoolers touring the campus.
From The Yale Daily News:
"Why won't straight black guys leave me the fuck alone?"
After the jump: More newspapers, more cursing. Fuck yeah!
The Harvard Crimson:
"The guy tells the third girl, 'If you don't want to go out with me, go fuck yourself!'
The story ends with its hero in post-orgasmic ecstasy."
The Dartmouth:
"We collectively realized our naivete and tooly-ness, stopped being quite so lame and
toned the fuck down.
(In this excerpt, The D is obviously speaking about lame-o Ivy League dailies.)
The Brown Daily Herald:
"Most of the time we wrote good shit."
From the Prince's incredibly credulous coverage of the Anscombe Affair:
"Nava said the two men told him to 'shut the fuck up" as they left him lying on the
ground."
If there's a sign of truly world-shattering anomie, this must be it.
P.S. Our apologies for our radio silence these last couple days. Sometimes, well, we just need some time off.
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March 26th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Cheaters. The examples from the DP and the D were from their entertainment sections. Of course they’re going to have looser standards.
At the one I work at (and spend some time as an editor with authority over this type thing), profanity is generally discouraged when not necessary (i.e. in quotes or for specific effect in a column), but does seem to have been used more in the past year or two.
March 26th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
The example wasn’t even from the DP. It was from a subsidary publication printed once a week that focuses on campus humor and entertainment. This article is inaccurate and misleading.
March 26th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Very misleading. The Crimson example is from 1969! Nice try.
March 26th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
This website sucks.
March 26th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Plus, it’s a column ABOUT obscenity! It’s not like they were just throwing f-bombs into random articles.
Oh, and the BDH one is from 2004.
March 26th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
ivygate, please cover anthony kelley’s latest nonsense. seriously, who gave this kid a column? he’s so bagshit crazy about race that he’s cheapening the cause. these are legitimate issues to be explored, but this guy’s a crazy person. the latest article? on rage and “lovelessness.” i won’t go into it: just read it. and if you happen to be in his way on the sidewalk and if you happen to be white, get the fuck out of his way because holy shit he’s about to pop. if you’re not white, it’s okay. it’s only white people that piss him off, as the article makes clear.
March 26th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
the cornell one was from a halloween issue. so that was also a joke.
March 26th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
did you just search “shit OR fuck” on each paper? the Brown one’s from the 1)2004 2)commencement 3)magazine 4)column. that’s a 4-point stretch, friend.
March 26th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
I agree. He is about to lose it and take a pool cue to some innocent white guy’s head.
Is there racism in our country? Abso-fucking-lutely. Do white people at Columbia force black people off the sidewalk because they feel they own the place? Not quite.
March 26th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
This Anthony Kelley kid is demented. Yeah, fuck you white people and the racism that is dear to all of your hearts! I’m going to have courage so that I may end lovelessness!!!!!11!!!!1!!
March 26th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Yeah, Street is like the Sunday Magazine to the DP’s Times.
Also, for what it’s worth, LexisNexis tells me that the NYT has printed both words before.
March 26th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
DROPS
http://blogs.kitschmag.com/watch/2008/03/26/props-drops-heaven-hell-edition/
March 31st, 2008 at 1:23 am
additionally, the ydn excerpt is from scene, a weekly arts/pop culture section that is separate from the daily paper. it contains swear words every single week. really, ivygate, was this the most sensational story you could find?
March 31st, 2008 at 3:05 am
Seriously? Quoting Street and calling it the DP. Funny, since it’s a post about journalism standards.