The Shavian adjective

March 9, 2006 8:44 PM

So where here the b****y hell are you? has been banned from UK TV screens by the BACC (Thanks a b****y lot) for being offensive even though a study (Language and Sexual Imagery in Broadcasting: A Contextual Investigation) [PDF] released by Ofcom in September 2005 found that b****y was "Not really offensive to any group, seen as everyday sort of language". This from the nation that brought us Little Britain [NSFW]. Some banned advertising still lives on though.
posted by tellurian (41 comments total)

Ha! I thought it was b-itch-y.
posted by smackfu at 8:56 PM on March 9, 2006

Am I reading that right: "So where here(?) bloody hell are you?" Becuase that bloody well doesn't make sense.
posted by wfrgms at 8:57 PM on March 9, 2006

hear, hear! wfrgms, I blew it.
posted by tellurian at 9:01 PM on March 9, 2006

I did too, smackfu. :)
posted by Malor at 9:14 PM on March 9, 2006

I've always wondered why 'bloody' is perceived as a 'bad word' in some Commonwealth countries. It seems so... quaint in a world where little old ladies are yelling 'eat shit, motherfucker' out their little-old-lady-car windows and elementary school kids are emailing each other goatse links between hits off the crack pipe.

Still, quaint isn't necessarily a bad thing.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:15 PM on March 9, 2006

A study released by Ofcom in September 2005 that b****y was "Not really offensive to any group, seen as everyday sort of language"

The actual BACC guidelines (BACC are the people that rejected the ad) says advertisers should refer to the ITC's Delete Expletives? study. It says:

When the use of swearing and offensive language in television advertisements was addressed, it was found that participants were far less tolerant. Even words that were considered relatively mild in themselves were thought to be unacceptable in commercials. Ninety two per cent of respondents agreed with the current policy that says there should be no swearing or offensive language used in television advertisements at all.

So the ad being rejected is completely not surprising and the policy is not new.
posted by cillit bang at 9:16 PM on March 9, 2006

Bloody Hell...
posted by Atreides at 9:16 PM on March 9, 2006

Cheeky bastards.
posted by Mijo Bijo at 9:25 PM on March 9, 2006

F**k those s**t-eating d************s.
posted by ColdChef at 9:28 PM on March 9, 2006

Whilst I normally highly enjoy anything that brings embarrassment to the Howard Government, I think that this ban is a bit rich coming from a nation that gave us Ali-G, Benny Hill and, as the original poster has said, the incredibly unfunny Little Britain.

Which is why the obvious explanation behind this decision is that the UK is sick of all of its tourists coming to Australia and spending money here when they could be touring their own country and spending money at home.

Who knows? Maybe that would be a good thing. Less of them getting knocked off on lonely outback highway roads can't be bad, surely?
posted by Effigy2000 at 9:32 PM on March 9, 2006

Only adults like us are allowed to say 'damn', 'bitch', 'ass' and 'hell'. So get your helling damnin' ass back in that bitchin' damn room, dammit!

...Damn, what? I was just helping you out, bitch!
posted by Vervain at 9:38 PM on March 9, 2006

Is "bloody" really a 'bad' word in england? I always figured it was just something people said, like "crap". Although in Pygmalion one character says the word is bad.

Hmm...
posted by delmoi at 9:43 PM on March 9, 2006

Bloody poms.
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:47 PM on March 9, 2006

That's an interesting read cillit bang, thanks for setting me straight on that. 'Bloody' just beats 'God' and gets pipped by 'Crap'. I see that 'Nigger' (11th to 5th) and 'Paki' (17th to 10th) are racing up the charts.
posted by tellurian at 9:53 PM on March 9, 2006

ROTHFLMAO at the next to last link.
posted by wsg at 10:12 PM on March 9, 2006

They lost me at, 'We've poured you a beer.' Australian beer? No thanks.
posted by MrMustard at 11:08 PM on March 9, 2006

There are many superb Australian beers.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:11 PM on March 9, 2006

I'm sure I don't need to elucidate my views on the subject.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 11:12 PM on March 9, 2006

Good to see News Radio has an audience on Metafilter.
posted by dangerousdan at 11:26 PM on March 9, 2006

You BASTARDS! You vicious, heartless, bastards! [.mp3]
posted by furtive at 11:36 PM on March 9, 2006

stavrosthewonderchicken - They obviously keep them in Australia then.
posted by MrMustard at 11:38 PM on March 9, 2006

www.coopers.com.au MrMustard.

Blight them, and I may have to kill you.
posted by Thoth at 12:11 AM on March 10, 2006

Well, we sent Little Creatures Pale Ale your way, MrMustard and a lot of people seemed to like it (see the reviews and awards section)
posted by bunglin jones at 12:14 AM on March 10, 2006

Is "bloody" really a 'bad' word in england? I always figured it was just something people said, like "crap".

Not really. It's probably regarded as less offensive than "crap".

The peculiar thing is that the guidelines ban the word 'bloody' from the commercials, then when the real programme comes back on, you can hear as many cocksucking, motherfucking cunts as you please -- after the watershed anyway.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:55 AM on March 10, 2006

So the ad being rejected is completely not surprising and the policy is not new.

Nor is it surprising. After all, you'll get a warning that a particular TV show may contain strong language, and so you can choose to watch it, or not.

If they had to insert warnings before the commercials, the things would be on all fucking night.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:58 AM on March 10, 2006

I had a Coopers today and it was delicious. Mr Mustard, is your opinion of Australian beer based on Fosters? Or do you prefer a warmer pint of ale than you'd traditionally find in Australia?
posted by Foaf at 1:40 AM on March 10, 2006

I also saw the Australia.com ad today on NZ TV. What the bloody hell is wrong with it?
posted by Foaf at 1:42 AM on March 10, 2006

When the campaign was first launched I recall hearing that it was deveopled by the same people that did New Zealand's "100% pure" campaign (Hows that for a trans-tasman jap) and that "bloody" would be removed from the ad when shown in "muslim" countries.
posted by X-00 at 1:53 AM on March 10, 2006

Obscenity is the crutch of an inarticulate motherfucker.
posted by loquacious at 2:10 AM on March 10, 2006

CityTV in toronto used to always bleep the mother portion of motherfucker out. Never failed to make me laugh.
posted by srboisvert at 3:24 AM on March 10, 2006

Bloody used to be (before, say, WWII) an extremely bad word in the UK; my understanding is that pretty much only the elderly are bothered by it these days. Here's the OED's take on it, written back in the 1880s:

2. As an intensive: Very....and no mistake, exceedingly; abominably, desperately. In general colloquial use from the Restoration to c 1750; ‘now constantly in the mouths of the lowest classes, but by respectable people considered ‘a horrid word’, on a par with obscene or profane language, and usually printed in the newspapers (in police reports, etc.) “b―y”’.
[The origin is not quite certain; but there is good reason to think that it was at first a reference to the habits of the ‘bloods’ or aristocratic rowdies of the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th c. The phrase ‘bloody drunk’ was apparently = ‘as drunk as a blood’ (cf. ‘as drunk as a lord’); thence it was extended to kindred expressions, and at length to others; probably, in later times, its associations with bloodshed and murder (cf. a bloody battle, a bloody butcher) have recommended it to the rough classes as a word that appeals to their imagination. We may compare the prevalent craving for impressive or graphic intensives, seen in the use of jolly, awfully, terribly, devilish, deuced, damned, ripping, rattling, thumping, stunning, thundering, etc. There is no ground for the notion that ‘bloody’, offensive as from associations it now is to ears polite, contains any profane allusion or has connexion with the oath ‘'s blood!’]

This citation is a reminder of the force it had less than a century ago:

1914 Shaw Pygmalion 111, Liza. Walk! Not bloody likely. (Sensation). I am going in a taxi.

There literally was a sensation when that line was spoken, and Shaw had to fight to keep the word in. Even as late as 1938, when the play was filmed, according to IMDb it was "the first British film to use the word 'bloody' in its dialogue."

The past is a foreign country.
posted by languagehat at 5:26 AM on March 10, 2006

They should just start cursing in Jamaican patois, which is much more vicious but no one will understand it anyway. Steenkin rahsclaat battymahn!
posted by fungible at 6:01 AM on March 10, 2006

I think my eye must have jumped to the Little Britain in your post, because I immediately translated b****y as "bitty."
posted by schoolgirl report at 6:40 AM on March 10, 2006

My five-year-old gets very upset when my English in-laws say bloody. As they are wont to do with alarming frequency.
posted by stinkycheese at 9:31 AM on March 10, 2006

OK, OK, it appears I'm being a little harsh on Ozzie beer. That said, bunglin jones' link admits, 'Little Creatures Pale Ale is a world away from the Aussie beer we are used to in Britain.'

Australian beer in the UK (and yes Foaf, I do mean Fosters and her ilk, and I'm aware they're brewed in the UK) is, by and large, known as 'sheep dip' or 'having sex in a canoe'. Neither of these is complimentary.
posted by MrMustard at 1:03 PM on March 10, 2006

The other PR agency in the group I work for is managing the below the line campaign in New Zealand, this story has meant the campaign has obtained a second round of media articles mostly criticising the Bloody British.

This is great for the campign in New Zealand, and important as I would imagine that New Zealanders are the single biggest group of tourists to Australia. (The Ozzies are for us).
posted by Samuel Farrow at 3:16 PM on March 10, 2006

I was under the impression that 'bloody' had something to do with the blood of Christ.
posted by Blue Stone at 6:53 PM on March 10, 2006

Come to think of it, I believe you're right, Blue Stone. The religious link is what makes it a Big Swear.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:41 PM on March 10, 2006

I would much prefer they tried to ban ads based on a scaling stupidity factor rather than the use of an inoffensive word. At one point I thought if I saw another Crazy Frog ad I would commit homicide. Where are our priorities? Won't somebody think of the children?
posted by synkro at 7:45 PM on March 10, 2006

Australian beer in the UK (and yes Foaf, I do mean Fosters and her ilk, and I'm aware they're brewed in the UK) is, by and large, known as 'sheep dip' or 'having sex in a canoe'. Neither of these is complimentary.

Of course you do realise that Fosters basically isn't drunk in Australia? Terrible stuff.
posted by wilful at 2:30 AM on March 11, 2006

Blue Stone, stavros: Read my OED quote. Here, I'll highlight the relevant bit at the end:

There is no ground for the notion that ‘bloody’, offensive as from associations it now is to ears polite, contains any profane allusion or has connexion with the oath ‘'s blood!’

In other words, it's a good story but it ain't so.
posted by languagehat at 5:49 AM on March 11, 2006