dslfool
Group: Members
Posts: 105
Joined: April 2004 |
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Posted: June 11 2004,06:17 |
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Y'know, I'm having a hell of a time  writing a response that's neither too long-winded re American standards vs. behavior nor too politically charged - I've scrapped my first four drafts.
Being neither a parent nor a school administrator I'll leave it to others to explain more fully, but my observation is that American schools tend to be very conservative regarding the language presented to children, particularly in the early grades. I'm not sure to what degree this is a factor, but I know there are conservative parents who would object to ANY "curse" words being used in a school, whether in a complementary context or not.
As an aside, I grew up in a (now abandoned) Christian belief system in which the word "damn" was to be used only in the context of an action of God. Since "damning" was the purview of God alone, it was considered presumptuous and and sinful for man to appropriate the word for any other useage and therefore the word was not considered only a mild curse. (There was much debate in my family whether I should be allowed to exclaim "Damn!" on stage in a production of "Oliver" when I was a teenager. I went ahead with the line and there was no lightning.)
Again, being neither a parent nor a school employee I have no stake in the matter other than to be in favor of spreading the benefits of Linux in general and DSL in particular. I DON'T think it's worth the effort to purge DSL of the word "damn", but knowing how American schools and parents are I've wondered for months if this has or would be an impediment to being adopted by a school.
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Toshiba Portege 7200CTe notebook, 600MHz PIII, 8GB CF as HD, 320MB RAM
DSL 4.2.5 (frugal toram)
...and the picture is of Fuad Ramses from the film "Blood Feast".
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