Holiday Ramblings #2 - The Squozen One

Over the past 6 weeks, I have addictively watched and listened to well over 100 hours of mindless conversation between renowned Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl ‘round-headed buffoon’ Pilkington. The group’s unrivalled chemistry on their multiple productions has delivered great moments, but due to the fact that they spent their first few years of togetherness on XFM Radio, they were limited in the language they could use as indicated by the frequently uttered, “Can we say that?”, often followed up by, “I don’t think so.”

This got me thinking about the way in which people are offended by language I don’t consider offensive. In the show, there are countless instances which could easily be considered offensive (generally not malicious) towards groups such as disabled people, homosexuals, and the Chinese without any kind of swearing and often without any remark of, “Can we say that?” This fascinates me in that Ricky Gervais and those above him see little wrong with direct offenses towards certain groups, passing it simply as funny (and it is), yet it is offensive to utter the F-word without directing it at anyone in dissent (such as after dropping a brick on your foot). What is it about certain words that offend people without any malicious intent? If I slipped the S-word into an anecdote in replacement of ‘stuff’, why would it offend anyone? Could they actually provide a valid answer regarding why they’re offended?

I Googled why this group of words is considered offensive, and most people agreed that we created the offensiveness because the words themselves don’t have a whole lot behind them, but rather offense is subjective. In this case, why do radio stations decide what their audience finds offensive? Arghhh this interest of mine is evoking more questions than it’s answering. I’m baffled.

I believe that any language goes. This comes back to what I consider to be the primary topic of our studies: Language and Identity. The worst thing someone can do is feel restricted or feel like they can’t be him or herself, and I know for a fact that the way I speak or the way I speak is a huge part of my identity. This has been the most all-over-the-place blog post that I’ve conjured up, but it’s at times like the end of the holidays where you lack the ability to construct a structural idea, and sometimes it’s nice to reveal the ramblings of a madman. 

Holiday Ramblings #1 - Travelling Innit

When I walk into school in 39 hours and 16 minutes, I will great my friends with a friendly hello, a witty insult, a big hug – no, not a hug. Can’t be publicly displaying that affection can we? – followed by “What’d you get up to?” in which my friends will reply “Travelling innit.” or something of the same sense in their own way. It is a part of international life we have all become so accustomed to. The human traffic (not trafficking) which we all partake in allows us to flow freely between different countries, cultures and communities.

With that in mind, a simple Googling of the word ‘community’ provides you with ‘a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.’ That being said, it is indubitable that in my travelling to nations Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, England, and Australia in the span of two months has allowed me to infiltrate a plethora of communities (regional and beyond). That which I’d really like to touch on is the wondrous Australia, my home country.

When I was looking up the topics we’d covered in this course in my holiday stupor, I came across an explanation of ‘Language and Communities’, including the statement ‘one could argue that a community is defined by its use of language’, getting me thinking about the strange feeling I got just a few days earlier. I was walking down busy Adelaide streets following a trip to Coles for Australia-exclusive lollies (candy) and was amazed by something so simple: the fact that everyone chit-chatting on benches and bumping shoulders with me whilst talking into their ear whatchamacallit was speaking English. This is something I would’ve considered oh so ordinary three years ago but fascinates me today following my international studies.

Coming back to that statement, this swayed my opinions on the place I live today. I have always told my Aussie mates that the UAE lacks the community that in my experience, other nations have (e.g. Australia), and that it feels like a collection of individuals acting in their own interest as a result of the get-in-get-out nature of the place. Reading that statement, many people would affiliate it with the idea of a community being formed through the collection of people speaking the same language, however following my ‘enlightening’, I viewed the same statement with a different perspective, in that UAE is a special community not made up by people speaking the same language all the time, but rather individual cultures and associated languages coming together (and using the same language) to form a functioning economy and system, thus in my opinion creating a community. It is a community unique to UAE I think; I have never seen a community more intricate, but that is what makes it so beautiful. From now on, I won’t spout rubbish about the lack of a community, but focus on the crazy, crazy beauties of this strange, strange place.