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http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl >> News and Comment >> Too much bad language? http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1320580544 Message started by Administrator on Nov 6^th, 2011, 11:56am

Title: Too much bad language?
Post by Administrator on Nov 6^th, 2011, 11:56am

The Sunday Times radio critic, Paul Donovan, is fed up with foul language on the BBC:

Gutter madness

Forty years ago, the first f-word was heard on the radio. Now, new guidance on usage is expected before Christmas.

The tide of filth swept in 40 years ago this week. But who opened the floodgates? He has never been identified. Four decades on, it is time he stepped from the shadows to out himself and claim his place in radio history.

Hyperbolic terms, perhaps, but then this is a melancholy anniversary. The f-word was first used on British radio on November 9, 1971, on Woman’s Hour on Radio 4 (six years after Kenneth Tynan first said it on television). An item on sexual attitudes, featuring contributions from John Lennon, Yoko Ono and Dr Martin Cole, also included an interview with an 18-year-old, who electrified the programme with an attack on Oz and other underground papers. “A lot of the views expressed seem rather immature and shallow in that every second word they say is ‘f***ing this, f***ing that’,” he remarked. Who could this scourge of sloppy journalism have been? Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson, Francis Maude and Graham Gooch were all 18 at the time, and doubtless more than capable of expressing forthright views.

The Sun reported the next day that “housewives spilled their tea” and that “kids listening with mother” (Listen with Mother still existed then, going out immediately before Woman’s Hour) were banished from the room. The BBC received 60 complaints, but neither apologised nor banned the hitherto taboo word. It said that, if the context justified it, then “f***” might occasionally be heard again. Mary Whitehouse, the liberal corporation’s most implacable critic, said: “This high-handed BBC decision will set a precedent for any writers or producers looking for a chance to shock.” How true that turned out to be.

Forty years on, it is possible to see that both the BBC and Whitehouse were correct. The f-word, and other examples of what broadcasters like to call “strong language”, is heard from time to time in serious dramas. The productions are always quite late, the content is flagged up with a health warning, and the words are used not to cause affront, but as a natural expression of characters’ torments and upbringing. Last weekend’s The Empire, about soldiers in Afghanistan (seven uses of f*** and three of c***), received only two complaints, says the BBC; Black Watch, about soldiers in Iraq (152 of f*** and 61 of c***), gathered four from two broadcasts; the coarsely adapted Wuthering Heights, earlier this year, got none. All these were on Radio 3.

The same language, however, is increasingly heard in the daytime when children may reasonably be expected to be listening. Given what they can also hear on television, it is little wonder so many are foul-mouthed. Miscreants include Radio 1’s Chris Moyles, Radio 1’s Black Eyed Peas concert, Capital, BBC Essex, and community stations across Britain such as Rinse FM, Brick FM, Bishop FM and OnFM. So concerned has Ofcom become that it convened a meeting with radio broadcasters 10 days ago, reiterating “in no uncertain terms what is and is not acceptable” and promising more thorough written guidance before Christmas, says a spokesman. It should talk less and fine more.