Blue Crab Boulevard

The Proof Is In The Numbers

The News Buckit provides a tabulation that counts up the number of uses the "seven deadly words" that George Carlin made famous in the blogosphere. Even with a somewhat larger sample of right-leaning blogs (22 to 18) the results are completely lopsided.

And this is what I found, using what I deemed — through a mix of TTLB and 2006's Weblog Award lists — to be the 18 biggest Lefty blogs, and 22 biggest Righty blogs. I couldn't account for the 6-month time period, and I even gave the Lefty blogs a 4 blog advantage. But it didn't make much of a difference.

So how much more does the Left use Carlin's "seven words" versus the Right? According to my calculations, try somewhere in the range of 18-to-1.

Yowsers.

How did I get this result? I searched Google using the following format and recorded the page results that were returned:

site:xyz.com "search term 1" OR "search term 2" OR "search term 3"…

Nine search terms total — the seven profanities as single words, and two of those as their own two-word variations. I then added the individual site results together and compared them.

I have a firm comment policy and won't let obscenity on the blog. Even profanity is severely limited. But when this site gets swarmed by the flocks from the artist formerly known as the Daou Report, many of the deposits contain the seven deadly words and more. Offenders take great umbrage that their comment gets nuked and that they are blacklisted (I love those automatic plugins for that). Incidentally, Patrick Ishmael, who tabulated these results, invites people to run their own tabulations. I'm guessing the results will be no different regardless of who does it.

Blogosphere | Gaius Thursday, 1 March , 2007

By Diva, Thursday, 1 March , 2007 @ 9:05 am

The study doesn’t surprise me - most of those living on the Far Left fringe are trapped in perpetual adolescence hence the “chic” use of profanities and the habitual outburst of ‘I wish he was dead (Bush, Cheney, Barney the dog or any Conservative/Republican…).

They act out this way because they are immature and completely unable to develop and defend an argument based on fact - so what you get is a long tirade punctuated with the f-bomb.
By Former Republican, Thursday, 1 March , 2007 @ 10:34 am

I read your site pretty regularly for two reasons. The main reason is that I usually disagree with your opinion. A lesser but significant reason is your comment policy. Keep it up!
By Colin, Thursday, 1 March , 2007 @ 12:59 pm

Who’s more adolescent? Someone who uses “naughty” words, or someone who gets their panties all in a bunch when they hear one?
By Bleepless, Thursday, 1 March , 2007 @ 1:05 pm

In Pogo Possum, when somebody got really, really angry, he would yell, “Gosh-a-mickel, dickle pickle, gee-willy-wobbles, dog my cats and rowrbazzle.”
By Gaius, Thursday, 1 March , 2007 @ 1:19 pm

Who’s more adolescent, someone who posts foul language where children can easily read it or someone who drops by to snipe at someone for having standars about that sort of thing?
By Straight8, Thursday, 1 March , 2007 @ 1:41 pm

When you don’t have facts or a valid arguement on a subject, then profanity is your only recourse. And that only proves the immaturity of the writer of said profanity.
Keep up the good work (and your standards), GAIUS.
There are many of us who appreciate both.
By Colin, Thursday, 1 March , 2007 @ 1:42 pm

If the use of profanity is immature, as Diva said, then there are an awful lot of immature adults in the world.

I can think of two immature adults off the top of my head: George (he called a reporter an ***hole) and Cheney (for the sake of the children, I won’t repeat his famous remark to Leahy here.)

While I’m here sniping I’ll go ahead and ask if Diva can provide any examples of liberals using profanity instead of forming sound arguments? A profanity-laced argument could be completely valid, just as a nice, safe-for-children, rated G, profanity-free argument could be complete nonsense.
By Quilly Mammoth, Thursday, 1 March , 2007 @ 4:37 pm

I _try_ not to use profanity for many reasons. One is that it is usually laziness to use profanity. They often doesn’t get the message across quite as well as prose due to the frequent usage of them. It makes the user look less intelligent and finally when I do use them the effect is more pronouonced.

Which is why I’m betting that ~~President~~ Vice-President Cheney used one to address Leaky.
By skippy, Friday, 2 March , 2007 @ 12:02 am

before we clutch our collective pearls in collective disgust at the left, let’s take a look at newsbuckit’s actual process and data.

as i point out on skippy, while it was flattering to be labeled as one of the 18 biggest liberal blogs, thereâ€™s no traffic ranking in blogtopia and yes, i coined that phrase, that puts my blog anywhere above 500 in ranking.

even worse, i personally couldnâ€™t believe skippy had 419 occurrences of swear words (because i have a pretty stringent approach to using swear words only for emphatic points or jokes, and usually substitute asterisks for vowels).

so i tried to reproduce his results, by using the same method he outlined in his piece.
my google search resuled in a mere 137 instances, less than 1/3 of what ishmael insists skippy had.

i also point out that he conveniently didnâ€™t count protein wisdom written by jeff â€œslap your face with my c*ckâ€ goldstein on the conservative side.

i would suggest that instead of defending the usage of swear words, the left start attack the rightâ€™s penchant for just making sh*t up.
By Gaius, Friday, 2 March , 2007 @ 6:38 am

Normally, Skippy, you comment would have been nuked. In this instance, I let it through, simply because it shows the problem. Every, single point you wanted to make could have been made without the crudity or the “cleaned up” obscenity. apparently, that escapes you entirely.