The BBC have opened to the public their internal blog from The Editors
Welcome to The Editors, a site where we, editors from across BBC News, will share dilemmas and issues that surround our services.
Jeff Jarvis talks about it here.
The blog explores the news behind the news, opening the process of gathering and producing programmes to the audience, giving a glimpse behind the curtain.
One interesting post from Kevin Marsh illustrates the ever-changing world that is English
Their latest complaints bulletin rules that Radio 1’s Chris Moyles wasn’t being homophobic when he called a ringtone “gay”. Young people – apparently – now routinely say “gay” when they mean “rubbish”. And the complaints committee is “familiar with hearing this word in this context”.
Read the comments, a good cross section of opinions from all ages, with some defending him for using the language of a primary audience to others challenging him for not setting an example. Although what example I’m not sure…this is not swearing as such, just the continued meaning change from ‘carefree’ to ‘rubbish’. It’s the opposite to nice, which moved from ‘stupid’ to ‘agreeable’.
The post also links to a paper about the relative severity of swear words and the changing of ranks between 1997 and 2005 (I think, could be slightly earlier). Most words stay in a similar rank, with the only major changes being with the racial abuse swear words, which are now seen as far more severe than they have been in the past
