Heard on Futurama: semantic drift?

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:08 PM -0400 8/6/08, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Uh, did I mention that this was Futurama, on Comedy Central, a channel
>which gives mere lip-service to censorship, only semi-hemi-arsedly
>bleeping even "motherfucker" and "Jesus fucking Christ!"?
>
>-Wilson

Well, I did say basic cable for that reason (as opposed to HBO, where
they don't bleep shit; or, more specifically, "shit").  I know from
the Daily Show that you can read lips and it's no secret what's being
said--but it's still not (quite) heard, and for that reason
substitutions are sometimes (although not always) used.  But I'm just
guessing here.

LH

>
>On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 9:56 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>  Subject:      Re: Heard on Futurama: semantic drift?
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  At 9:39 PM -0400 8/6/08, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>>Robot BE-speaker:
>>>
>>>"I ain't down with this 'Kwanzaa' _tip_ [there being only a single
>>>Kwanzaa gift, a booklet entitled, "What Is Kwanzaa?"]!"
>>>
>>>Presumably, "'Kwanzaa' _tip_ means "'Kwanzaa' bullshit" or some such.
>>
>>  Just a substitution of "tip" for "shit" I'd guess, given the fact
>>  that even on (basic) cable you still can't use any of Carlin's seven
>>  magic words.
>>
>>>
>>>In 'Sixties Los Angeles,
>>>
>>>"That ain't nothin' but a _bullshit tip_"
>>>
>>>was a common expression meaning something like, "That's a dumb idea";
>>>"You actually went for that okey-doke?!" etc. It appears that _tip_
>>>alone has taken over the meaning of _bullshit tip_.
>>
>>  Maybe, but I wonder whether that connection is really active here, or
>>  if it's just a simple euphemistic substitution.
>>
>>  LH
>>
>>  ------------------------------------------------------------
>>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
>--
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-----
>  -Sam'l Clemens
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org