follow me into the rain

From what I understand, for things like movie ratings, say, there's actually a certain amount of times you can say certain swear words to earn certain ratings. Like the broadcast edition of the English One Piece dub still has a few instances of them saying "Crap." But the uncut dub will actually include stuff like "kick your ass" and "bastard" (to my eternal amusement when Chopper says it.) You can say "fuck" in a PG-13 movie, but only a few times (I learned that by watching the RENT commentary, though I don't know where to find the actual list of stuff like that). Enough times and you get bumped up to R.

Technically, Zoro and Sanji's potty-mouthed bickering should probably have an R rating if they spoke like fanon likes to portray them doing on TV. In text I think it has less impact and people tend to move over to R only if there's really a LOT of cursing, and into NC-17 only for explicit sex or violence.

I'm wondering if my perception might not be a bit off, however, as I live in Montreal, and the province of Quebec has less rigid ratings. Movies that come out in the US and the rest of Canada with R ratings (like American Pie) only get PG-13 ratings here.

Anyway, when I post my fic, I tend to do it this way (or at least I think I do, possibly my posted stuff isn't 100% following this).

G - no swearing, innuendo, or violence.
PG - innuendo, "crap"-level swearing
PG-13 - lighter but not infrequent swearing or a couple of harder words, smoochies, innuendo or fade-to-black sex. I put Zoro-Sanji bickering in the category. I honestly can't see myself rating higher than PG-13 for language purposes anyway, thus betraying my Quebec mindset, I guess!
R - not-particularly explicit but still-described sex. Moderate violence (if I ever actually wrote any)
Hard R - Um... more explicit but not full-blown porn, I guess, I don't think I've ever used this.
NC-17 - Porn :) (funnily enough it's subjective too. First time I wrote sex I rated it this. Now I know it was barely R.) or really gory violence. I think it's easier to hit NC-17 gore on film than in fic, but I've read some nasty stuff, so it can be done.

If you have a few people you can send a given piece to, you could always do a little informal survey. The consensus should be in the right ballpark.

It is subjective though, like you said. Here's the MPAA official rundown (Here's the wiki link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association_of_America_film_rating_system))

G - General Audiences All ages admitted.
-No nudity, no sex, and no drugs, violence must be minimal, and there may be language that goes beyond polite conversations.
PG - Parental Guidance Suggested Some material may be inappropriate for younger children.
-There maybe some profanity and brief nudity, mild violence, or very mild drug references.
PG-13 - Parents Strongly Cautioned Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13 years old.
-May contain very strong language, nudity (non explicit), strong mildly bloody violence, or mild drug content.
R - Restricted No Children 17 or Under Without Parent or Guardian admitted.
-May contain very strong/sexual language, mild explicit nudity, strong/gory violence or strong drug content.
NC-17 - No Children 17 or Under Admitted No One 17 or Under Admitted.
-May contain very strong/sexual/offensive language, strong explicit nudity, very strong/gory/disturbing violence, or strong drug abuse.

See, none of that is really very clear either. Maybe the best way is to look at a piece and try to think if there's a minimum age below which you'd feel uncomfortable having someone read it, and rate accordingly.

Ummmm... was any of that helpful?

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That was EXTREMELY helpful, thank you so much! I'd looked up the MPAA thing on wiki, though, but wasn't quite clear on which swearwords would count as what, as this is something that's hard to get between languages. I'm assuming that "shit" and "goddamn" tend to be seen as more of a PG-13 thing than PG, then. Or maybe PG if they're used only once or twice?

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I think I would put "PG-13" on them... maybe PG if it was just "goddamn."

I think "crap" and "hell" and "damn" are the more PG swears. "Ass" is PG too, I think, but "asshole" is PG-13 (weird I know). Something about "ass" still being reference to a donkey, while "asshole" definitely isn't. "Bitch" and "son of a bitch" are PG-13... though I think a lot of people will say "cunt" is automatically an R, it seems to be quite a nasty word to many people (I think that's a North American thing more than a UK thing, though). I personally don't have much issue with it, though I don't really use it or hear it much either.

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Very much thanks again!!

I think "crap" and "hell" and "damn" are the more PG swears.

Oh crap, I thought they were just G.;p I shall have to remember that, and do better.

"Bitch" and "son of a bitch" are PG-13...

(nods) Yeah, I always thought "bitch" and "bastard" were pretty much stylistic equivalents.

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Well, I just use a mental rule that G = no swears, sex or anything even the tiniest bit objectionable. I'm not sure if that's totally right, but it's the one easy line to remember for me!

I think if you posted a fic rated G and it had those words in it, no one would be up in arms :P

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LOL I am terrible at this, morsly becuase I swear so much that PG to me is a few shits and maybe a fuck. So I always say like PG (with some s-words).

Goddamn in normal conversation isn't as frowned upon as shitty, but for some reason the media cannot stand GODDAMN, so if there's a movie or something airing on TV that SAYS "Goddamn" they will censor out the "God." I find it rather amusing.

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That's true! I forgot. I'm not American, and I think Canadians are less touchy about it, but the whole religion thing is pretty eek-worthy down there. US standards are sort of weird anyway--they'll censor sex WAY before they censor violence, they'll censor TEH GAY before het stuff (I mean even kissing), and they're touchy about religious imagery. Like the 4kids OP edited Mihawk's sword 'cause it looked like a cross, or something.

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Hahaha yeah I don't know. I just think it's funny they censore GODDAMN, but you can say GOD or JESUS in vain all the time. One cartoon on Cartoon Network even got away with saying GOOD LORD a couple of times.

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I'm bad at it, too - I think my initial view of what was common and accepted to say was pretty warped because my first extensive voluntary reading in English, (except for Mom's old Peanuts paperbacks) was the Love and Rockets comic book from back in the ages - which was, and is, For Mature Readers and uses "fuck" and all other type of swearwords fairly often and casually (but it's still VERY VERY GOOD INDEED). Then I eventually found out that words like "shit" are often considered rather shocking for many people, which was strange for me to hear since, again, judging from fiction or the Internet it seems to be used in conversation a lot. So I felt like I needed help. ;)

Ah, for some reason I had gotten the impression that "goddamn" was stronger than "shit". Thanks, that's quite useful to know!

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Well Goddamn can prolly be really really offensive to a religious person, but that same person would be offended at throwing GOD and JESUS around willy nilly.

It's shocking to people if you say it to people that don't know you or know you that well, or if you're not in a setting that opens a floodgate of swear words. Like at work, you're not really supposed to swear, obviously, and I generally try NOT to, but when I become relaxed around coworkers that I know don't care about swearing so much, I start swearing and they honestly get shocked--because they thought I was too polite to swear.

So I mean, just like it is for your langauge I'm sure, there's times you can swear and times you can't, it's all in the context.

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Well yes, sure - me, I seldom use the stronger swearwords since I'd rather save that for when I get really angry or upset or excited. And even the milder ones I tend to leave off if the company doesn't seem right for it, of course. I actually have a lot of affection for the more sillier type of swearword-substiutions - things like "dagnabbit" and "heck" and so on, and their Swedish equivalents. :D But then again, I tend to like silly stuff.

It's just that the Swedish word "skit" while in some contexts is plenty strong still doesn't really shock most people like the English word "shit" seems to do. It might not always be accepted but it wouldn't shock people either in most casual conversation between adults or, say, any type of TV entertainment except a highly serious program or a show for young children. I've heard the Japanese "kuso" is pretty similar in those respects (though what do I know? Absolutely bloody nothing.;))

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Yeah, I think SHIT is just strong because we have a wide variety of different ways to say that word? In Swedish, do you have many other degrees of way to say "skit" that are "less offensive"? Like as you're aware we say crap, or just silly little kid words like doodoo or what have you.

Kuso is like that, it means "shit" but it isn't as offensive, again, maybe it's because they don't have as many words as we do with varying degrees of acceptability? No idea hahah.

As for worrying about ratings because most Americans use the internet I wouldn't worry TOO much about it. You can get away with more on the internet than media, of course, I've ULed short fanfics to FF.N rated PG with like 3 uses of "shit" in them (thank you Sanji) and had no problems, I just put warning of swearing in the disclaimer and at least made SURE it wasn't G, because, as the other person said, that wouldn't have any swears except you could get away with like "GOD" or "CRAP" I should think.

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In Swedish, do you have many other degrees of way to say "skit" that are "less offensive"? Like as you're aware we say crap, or just silly little kid words like doodoo or what have you.

I've never thought of it like that, but I do believe you're right - there's no real stylistic equivalent of 'crap' in Swedish I can think of, not with that meaning. (There is a kiddy word, but that's considered embarrassing for adults to use, though nowadays many hip young people do.)

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I should mention I'm also speaking as an American, Canada is differnt as that other person pointed out, and England even more so (one show I watch they can say fuck a couple of times but cunt is always bleeped, etc, it's almost complex to me).

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