What's the difference between obscenity and offensive?

Obscenity


Definition:

  • (n.) That quality in words or things which presents what is offensive to chasity or purity of mind; obscene or impure lanquage or acts; moral impurity; lewdness; obsceneness; as, the obscenity of a speech, or a picture.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) These letters are also written during a period when Joyce was still smarting from the publishing difficulties of his earlier works Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” Gordon Bowker, Joyce’s biographer, agreed: “Joyce’s problem with the UK printers related to the fact that here in those days printers were as much at risk of prosecution on charges of publishing obscenities as were publishers, and would simply refuse to print them.
  • (2) The footballer, who plays for club side Gabala and the national team , had waved a Turkish flag during a Europa League match in Cyprus, and appeared to make an obscene gesture at a Greek journalist who asked why he had done so.
  • (3) A catalogue of errors allowed the broadcast on Radio 2 of a series of obscene messages the pair had left on the actor Andrew Sachs's answerphone.
  • (4) Randall, a former banking computer analyst and a widower with two grownup daughters, learned on Wednesday that charges of "trafficking obscene material" had been dropped and he was to be deported.
  • (5) Zimmerman was charged with an offence of sending by public communication network an offensive, indecent, obscene, menacing message or matter.
  • (6) The Occupy protesters outside St Paul's Cathedral in London named their camp "Tahrir Square" while they sat cross-legged, sang songs and consumed Marks & Spencer sandwiches, oblivious to the obscenity of a comparison with freedom fighters who risked their lives in Egypt.
  • (7) And while Altmejd presents sexual scenes of cartoonish horror and disgust, Lucas's art has embraced lavatorial humour, abjection, self-denigration, the pithy sculptural one-liner and the obscene gesture.
  • (8) Reuters's source said police told Ai: "You criticised the government, so we are going to let all society know that you're an obscene person, you evaded taxes, you have two wives, we want to shame you.
  • (9) Ing concedes she is hardly a fan of a man she accuses of a "blatant and obscene lack of ethics", but rejects the accusation that the film is anti-Thaksin propaganda: her use of red, for instance, was decided long before it became associated with his redshirts .
  • (10) The guidelines say that prosecutions should not be brought under obscenity laws but on the basis of the menace and humiliation intended, and in the most serious cases, where intimate images are used to coerce victims into further sexual activity, under the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
  • (11) Several other places were vetoed on account of various scandals and disputes, and I have also excluded luxurious and obscenely priced retreats.
  • (12) One Barking and Dagenham resident – a British citizen with Indian Caribbean heritage – described the BNP leaflet campaign as "obscene".
  • (13) Yet our confusions over the c-word are demonstrated by the fact that it has been common in recent years to find hundreds of women standing in a public arena and yelling the gynaecological obscenity: the setting is performances of the drama The Vagina Monologues, in which one sequence invites women to reclaim and empower the down-there noun.
  • (14) He was prosecuted under section 127(1) of the Communications Act 2003, which prohibits sending "by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character".
  • (15) The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has buried that obscene version of history by convicting Bagosora of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes – and, in the process, establishing that what happened in Rwanda in 1994 was neither accidental nor spontaneous.
  • (16) He included the text of an email sent to the National Gallery of Victoria’s curatorial team on 12 September saying any work using the pieces could not “contain any political, religious, racist, obscene or defaming statements”.
  • (17) Can you still read and do the things you want?’ And he said that since he’d had his child, he had more time because it made him stronger, more concentrated, more serious.’” We discuss how the word “feminism” was considered an obscenity during their trial.
  • (18) Club leaders, who argue that a wife should serve as a "good sex worker" and a "whore" to her husband, showed the book to journalists last month in an effort to dispel what they called misconceptions that it was obscene and demeaning to women.
  • (19) The district judge Elizabeth Roscoe found Nunn guilty of sending indecent, obscene or menacing messages following a trial at City of London magistrates court this month, and jailed him on Monday.
  • (20) • Outrages by Naomi Wolf Naomi Wolf follows Vagina with an examination of the 1857 Obscene Publications Act – the first law to ban the sale of obscene materials.

Offensive


Definition:

  • (a.) Giving offense; causing displeasure or resentment; displeasing; annoying; as, offensive words.
  • (a.) Giving pain or unpleasant sensations; disagreeable; revolting; noxious; as, an offensive smell; offensive sounds.
  • (a.) Making the first attack; assailant; aggressive; hence, used in attacking; -- opposed to defensive; as, an offensive war; offensive weapons.
  • (n.) The state or posture of one who offends or makes attack; aggressive attitude; the act of the attacking party; -- opposed to defensive.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The strike, which Central Command said destroyed the Isis fighting position, follows Barack Obama's vow in his televised speech on Wednesday to go on the offensive against Isis more broadly in Iraq and, soon, Syria.
  • (2) New offensive coach Tony Sparano was also a fan of Wildcat packages when he was head coach in Miami.
  • (3) We all do different things.” She was front and centre at Ashley’s side in footage shot last week by Sky News cameramen, who were also part of the “selected media” entourage invited to Shirebrook to launch the group’s charm offensive.
  • (4) Such extravagant claims will be familiar to the scheme's architect, Richard Rogers, whose designs for the office development beside St Paul's Cathedral in the 1980s were torpedoed when Charles implied in a public speech that the plans were more offensive than the rubble left by the Luftwaffe during the blitz.
  • (5) The central hypothesis of our study, then, was that psychotic men, charged with misdemeanor offenses, would be incarcerated for significantly longer periods of time, prior to trial, than their nonpsychotic fellows.
  • (6) It's not that Thompson isn't a a very good player – he and Steph Curry have been running one of the most potent offensives in the NBA over the last two years or so and he's obviously a much better defensive player than Love.
  • (7) It’s no good me swearing on a Bible; I don’t share your faith.” Morrison said: “I will do it, Ray, but I think it’s a very offensive thing for you to ask me to do but I’ll do it if that’s what you require...if you insist I will.” Hadley did not persist with the demand.
  • (8) The mean number of different types of drugs "ever used" was 5.87, and the mean number of drug sale offenses was 4.4.
  • (9) 18) Dallas Cowboys Last season: 8-8 Needs: Offensive line, safety, defensive tackle, running back Pick: Kenny Vaccaro, safety, Texas Tony Romo often carries the can for the Cowboys' offensive calamities, but the truth is that not many quarterbacks look great when they are running for their lives.
  • (10) 3.46am BST Here's the instant response from Ewen MacAskill , at the scene of the debate-crime: Barack Obama staged a strong comeback in his second showdown with Mitt Romney, with the president describing his Republican opponent as "offensive" in suggesting he was playing politics over Benghazi and portraying him as more extreme than George W Bush on social issues such as women's rights.
  • (11) Speaking in Washington on Thursday, the Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, said the offensive underscored the growing threat posed by Isis militants – whom he referred to using the group’s Arabic acronym “Daesh”.
  • (12) Kurdish peshmerga forces backed by the US-led coalition have launched attacks on Islamic State east of Mosul as the campaign to oust the militants stepped up with three offensives across Iraq and Syria.
  • (13) Partners to the drug-treated mice showed a decrease in the occurrence of offensive ambivalence and of the element "rattle".
  • (14) UN envoy Staffan De Mistura halted the latest Syria talks on 3 February, because of major differences between the two sides, exacerbated by increased aerial bombings and a wide military offensive by Syrian troops and their allies under the cover of Russian airstrikes.
  • (15) Top Gear presenter Clarkson, who has been repeatedly criticised for making offensive comments, had condemned Sky for the decision, describing it as "heresy by thought".
  • (16) The unremitting assault on Aleppo by Russian and Syrian forces over recent days is certainly testament to that.” In a week of what residents have described as the worst airstrike campaign since the start of the civil war in Syria , forces loyal to Assad have begun the early stages of a ground offensive aimed at reclaiming eastern Aleppo, which has been under opposition control since 2012.
  • (17) However, the growing offensive against the left by the pro-capitalist wing of the Labour party inevitably had a damaging impact on the LPYS.
  • (18) In April 2009, he launched the first concerted offensive against the extremists, routing them in the Swat valley in the north-west, before starting the continuing operations in Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal area, which runs along the Afghan border.
  • (19) The so-called “709 crackdown” has alarmed activists and foreign observers who view the offensive as part of a broader bid to consolidate political control by an increasingly authoritarian leadership.
  • (20) Since the beginning of December, MNLA leaders have been broadcasting their plans to start an offensive, led by the head of the movement's military wing, Colonel Mohamed Ag Najim.