Cursing on ESPN.com

Now, I'm just about the cursiest curser that's ever cursed, but I was still surprised to see curses on an ESPN.com story. It's actually Grantland, which has lots of curses. But those stories are often linked to on ESPN.com's home page, and when you look at them on the mobile site -- as millions do these days -- they're still under regular ESPN.com headings. Here's an example (albeit not a mobile one, because I can't get SportsJournalists.com to work very well on my cell):

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7809914/absurd-tanking-knicks-surging-miami-madness

Isn't ESPN the network that chides Tiger Woods when he curses, and slaps anchors on the wrist when they inadvertently let one slip on the air, and that acts as the moral police all the time? I don't mind cursing. I mind the general hypocrisy. Though, knowing ESPN.com's editing issues, it could just be nobody notices.

Or am I just getting old and becoming a nagging prude?

 

Holy shit. That's fucking insane!

Sort of coarse, I might add. It's a new world out there.

 

I'm on board with you Max...cursing is a lazy man's vocabulary and has no place, especially the way it's used in this story. Makes it sound like an amateur blog if you ask me. When a curse word pops to the front of the mind, put up a stop sign and find a better way to express your thought. You'll end up making your point without sounding stupid.

Only way I use something like that in a story is if it's in a quote, and that would even be a rarity.

SI got pretty heavy backlash for using a curse word on its Ryan Brothers cover during football season.

 

That site is full the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever did suck!

 

Flip you, melon farmer!</TheBreakfastClubonTVin1987>

 

That column had one of George Carlin's seven words you can never say on television. Color me unimpressed, you motherfucking cocksucker.

I'm in the grow-the-fuck-up camp. If you allow your child to interact with other children, or the Internet, or the movies, or anything else in society, they already know more profanities than you.

Here's the sentence in question: "You can't even call them shitty because it's an insult to shit."

It's a shitty sentence, sure. (There were also two uses of "crap," but I'm not sure that counts.) It's a lazy and unnecessary and dated use of a profanity. But this is Bill Simmons. He writes for bros who probably think he's the first person ever to use that turn of phrase.

 

I buy into the thinking that if you have to use swear words in your copy, you have failed as a writer. It demeans the product and makes it hard to take seriously resorting to such childish and inappropriate language.

 

George Carlin farts in your general direction. Flexmaster's, too.

The problem isn't the use of profanity. If you want to stick your fingers in your ears every time somebody utters a naughty words because mommy and daddy told you to, that's your issue.

The problem is that it wasn't used well or with good reason.

 

Remember when ESPN simulcast a bleeped version of Season on the Brink along with a non-bleeped version? And the ratings were something like 20-1 in favor of the non-bleeped?

Ultimately, they're words like any other words. Any word can be used too often. Ever see copy editors use the same noun in three headlines on the same page? (Sh)it happens.

 

This is what HAPPENS when you FIND a STRANGER in the ALPS!

 

yippee ki yay Mr Falcon