Frakking Hell!

[donnaimmaculata]

Does Archive of our Own cencor explicit language? Because I've just tried to read two fics and was thrown out of the story* by the repeated and highly inappropriate use of the word "frak". I feel dirty and violated.

*uh, "story"

Comments

[wildestranger.livejournal.com]

They don't - I expect that's a reference to Battlestar Galactica, where 'frak' is used instead of 'fuck'.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

I guessed so right after I made the post. Regardless, it's annoying as hell. I literally can't read it, it makes me think of Vernon Dursley's "effing".

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I love BSG, but it annoys the hell out of when 'frak' is used for fuck in other fandoms.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

I haven't watched BSG yet, I can imagine it's less annoying after you've seen the show. But coming across it in a fic looks like a really bad attempt at censoring. Aaargh!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I like it a lot in the show. It's a great solution to a military situation where they'd be cursing up a storm, but on network TV. But yep, elsewhere? Would look like that.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

It might be my European upbringing, but I'm not bothered by cursing. I think our attitude is different than the American one; there isn't as much cursing on TV as in the US, but if there is, it doesn't get censored.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's pretty bad here. You'd never hear a 'fuck' on TV without there being weeks of fallout after it...

[midnitemaraud-r.livejournal.com]

Were you reading Battlestar Galactica fic? :-P

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

I tried. It was most disturbing!

[ellensmithee.livejournal.com]

No, that's just weird.

That reminds me of these German zine publishers who used to write "G-d" instead of "God" and when I asked them why, they said Americans find it unacceptable to write out "God" and so it had to be censored. I tried to convince them that that's only a rule in Judaism, but they wouldn't accept my humble American opinion on that. ;-)

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

I guessed it must be a canon thing, but it's still most disturbing. Why did they think they had to censor it in canon?!

G-d is just as disturbing. I don't understand why people think that not writing out the words that they actually want to say and that everyone knows they are saying is in any way better than saying them. It's so weird.

[ellensmithee.livejournal.com]

No, they meant American readers of the zines, I guess? Really bizarre.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

I don't quite understand censoring of profanities anyway. Either you understand what is meant by the word anyway, in which case you understand it no matter whether they look/sound like, or you don't understand what the word means in the first place! Silly.

[ellensmithee.livejournal.com]

Plus, it's fiction, ffs. Censoring language like that is interfering with the work itself. It just irritates me to no end.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Huh. Usually when I see "God" rendered as "G-d," it's an Orthodox Jewish thing. I could explain, if you were really curious, but I expect you get the general idea.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Hm, I've seen it pop up occasionally without paying attention whether it was an Orthodox Jewish thing or not. I think I've seen it in the Christian context, as well, but on the whole, I'm not that bothered to research it in depth :-)

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

There's a Thing about not writing or pronouncing the direct name of God. (Which makes it silly to do in English, because that's not actually the ineffable Name, but...) It's the same reason why, when one is reading the Torah or other Hebrew sources aloud, and one gets to the tetragrammaton (YHVH), what one says aloud is "Adonai," which means "Our Lord" instead.

It all seems very Voldemort to me, but I'm not exactly observant OR reverent.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Yes, I knew that the name of God is not written or pronounced. But as you say, it's silly in English, because "god" refers to all kinds of gods, including the pagan ones, and it seems odd to not write it. However, I am not religious at all and tend to find many aspects of religion baffling.

[iibnf.livejournal.com]

That used to drive me nuts. 'God' is just a euphemism, anyway! (Since they can't say YWH or Yahweh or Jehovah), so that whole g-d thing just showed such massive ignorance.

The weird Chinese (badly pronounced) swearing on Firefly was just as annoying as the Frak business, specially since, other than one 'coolie' stereotype, there were no Chinese people.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

God is such a weird example, because it refers to all kinds of gods, including the pagan gods. Do they get censored, too?

I'm not sure what happens in languages other than English. German never uses G_tt. In some historical/religious texts, they spell it GOtt, because German capitalises all nouns, and god is speshul and deserves double capitalisation.