Friday, 21 May 2010

How to be offensive: a guide for the polite

A lovely Japanese lady, who must rank among politest people on the planet, has asked me to scrutinise her forums posts and let her know if any of them are offensive. Now, I doubt that she has ever written or said anything deliberately offensive in her life, certainly not to strangers on the internet. I said as much to her (tact is not my strong point).

She said of course not, not intentionally. But how can she tell if, writing in a foreign language, she unintentionally makes an offensive remark? How can she tell what is considered unacceptable in Britain, in North America, indeed to anyone, in any part of the world? Nothing that I have said about the general reasonableness of people or the unimportance of offending people who don't know where you live has satisfied her. She wants a clear action plan for avoiding doing something she has never done and would never dream of doing.

This is tricky. To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, it is a three-teapot problem. I have thought very hard over a lot of tea and come up with this idea: to teach her how to be deliberately offensive, so that she can recognise when she is doing it and so satisfy herself that she is not doing it.

I'm not an expert on offensive behaviour myself (it's not a compulsory subject in British schools), so I can only offer the following simple suggestions.

Consistently spell the person's name wrong.

If you quote their words, get them wrong. Make sure you give the impression that you did not read their words carefully.

If you like what they write, steal it. Put their comments on your web site without permission. Retell their best jokes and pretend you thought them up.

Tell them that they are ignorant of some common knowledge, like rules of good behaviour, grammar or punctuation. Telling them that they don't understand the history of their own country is a good move.

Question their mental state, also that of their political and religious leaders.

Make public any personal information you may have about them, in an unflattering way.

Make condescending remarks about their age, sex, race and religion. If possible, get at least one of these wrong. Say things like "I don't expect a kid like you to understand this, but...." to someone who a 27 year-old, call a Canadian an American, etc.

Deliberately misunderstand at least one point that they make every time you respond to them.

Either misspell your post to them (to show that you couldn't be bothered to check your words before posting them) or correct their spelling (to imply that they are too lazy to check their words before posting them). Be sure to correct their spelling if they are writing in their native language.

Express all your opinions as facts and say that anyone who disputes them is an idiot/bigot/heathen. Naturally, you should at the same time dispute every opinion expressed by your opponent.

Throw in very extremely unecessarily EMPHATIC language, such as &*$%ing OBSCENTITIES, CAPITALS and lots of EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!! This makes you look like an UNREASONABLE and VERY ANGRY person!

you could also try typing everything in lower case very long sentences with no punctuation at all which makes you look very mad and also unreasonable but not very angry.


I shall be setting all my politest and most charming students the task of writing me an offensive post. There may be a prize for the best entry. Watch this space.....

4 comments:

  1. bluskyteepoo,

    u r truely ignorant

    everybody knows that MAD MEANS ANGRY!!1! so ur sntance "makes you look very mad and also unreasonable but not very angry." makes you sound stupid maybe you jus type like this becauseyour welshy scotish country with its history of imperialsm is trying to mess up the language u stole from the americans and mess it up by spelling stuff like COLOR and LABOR wrong and using different words to mean what they dont reelly mean. R U smoking pot!!?! wat kind of a name is bluskyteepoo n e way? maybe when you grow up and become more mature you wil lern what you are talking about and not post such ridiculous stuff


    btw, DR WHO SUXXX!!!!!

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  2. Awesome! If all LingQ members could write such astonishingly offensive posts, my work would be done :-D

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  3. skyblueteapot,

    I don't wish to come across as offensive here, but let me know if I am out of line...

    Because of the differences between British and American colloquialisms, your phrase "makes you look very mad and also unreasonable but not very angry." may seem a bit odd to those who are more familiar with American English or not native English speakers, because "mad" means "angry" and they may not understand at first that you mean "mad" to be "crazy". I know you have many blog readers who are not British so I just wanted to help make a clarification on a potentially confusing point. Thank you.


    P.S. I noticed you enjoy Dr Who. I really enjoyed the David Tennant Doctor and I can't help but feel disappointed about the way he went out and I am having a hard time adjusting to this new doctor. I feel he is too young for the role and is detracting from my enjoyment of the show. Maybe I'll just take a break from it for a while and come back to it in a year or two.

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  4. Thank you! That is a most excellently worded polite post. I will show it to English learners if I may.

    David Tennant was, I suppose, rising too fast to stay in Doctor Who long. With his reputation he could get a part in any play or film he wants now. Doctor Who is only a TV show after all.

    Matt Smith is a very sweet chap who comes from our town. He signed a photo for my kids which won them over to him instantly ;-)

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