Comment by kaoD | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kaoD | Hacker News Reader

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I couldn't fucking care less ;)

Now seriously, it's probably due to cultural differences. Is profanity that frowned upon on the US (or wherever you're from)? It's surprising how sensitive the US is towards profanity for a country where "fuck" is used extensively in media.

I literally didn't think anything about the domain but it's probably because lighthearted profanity is much more pervasive in my culture, where it's used as an emphasis tool (and less for its shocking value in media). We don't censor (beep) swear words on TV either (which BTW seems ridiculous from our point of view).

Yes, I'm not going to swear in a professional setting, but I'm not going to think less of someone for their use of words. Words are just words. Swear words don't hurt me any more than non-swear words if they're not meant to hurt anyone.

It's a simple "fuck yeah". It's supposed to be an expression of joy. How does that hurt you at all? Why would it make you less inclined to click on it? Genuinely curious.

EDIT: Also, regarding that "what if there were 5-year-olds visiting this site" point I've seen elsewhere... In my country everyone swears and children aren't traumatized or anything. As soon as kids are old enough to recognize the subtext they refrain from swearing (in front of adults) themselves.

Don't swear in front of toddlers though. They'll repeat it over and over again.

Profanity is a tough issue because it's so cultural. A great example is the word 'suck' - it's pretty well accepted in the vernacular today when expressing 'very bad', but I remember my 8th-grade English teacher (an older lady) talking about how she'd prefer if we didn't use it. It used to have sexual connotations, moreso than it does today. Same deal with my wife's grandmother: that word will get you a glare if you're not talking about what a vacuum cleaner does.

So it's a weird feedback loop - if words aren't deemed to be profane, no one thinks twice about them. If words are deemed to be profane, some people will ban them, which makes other people not use them just because they're not supposed to be used.

Censorship can actually propagate profanity, in this sense. As language changes, words can become unacceptable (How many Richards are using the common nickname these days? Would you use the three-letter British term for a cigarette anymore?) or acceptable (apparently 'leg' and 'bull' were frowned upon in Victorian times).

I'm aware of all this. And, to be honest, I'm not as offended as my comments probably make me out to be. I usually just pass this stuff by, but since someone had already commented I figured I'd chime in as well.

For me, there are words that I don't want to say for cultural reasons, so I follow the 'you are what you eat' principle. If I don't saturate myself with language that I don't want to use, I'm less likely to use it. Also, there are often times when I find that stronger language is reflective of attitudes that I don't want to have. So I wouldn't replace 'suck' with 'stink' when I want to express that someone isn't good at something; rather, I'd try to phrase my criticism in a more constructive way.

> Why would it make you less inclined to click on it? Genuinely curious.

It's not that I'm, gasp! offended, by the use of a "dirty word", but rather that this kind of gratuitous swearing seems designed purely to make the website somehow appear "cooler" than it would otherwise be with a simple boring name.

Personally, I don't buy it. To me, it simply makes the author appear juvenile, decidedly un-professional, caring more about appearance than substance. It is exactly the kind of childish stunt I would expect from the "brogrammer" crowd. It's fucking embarrassing already!

Ah, I see what you mean. Same thing happens to me when someone tries to be clever with sexual innuendo, it's just cringeworthy.

Well, I though the title was trying to be juvenile (and definitely didn't strive for professionalism) on purpose. I took it less seriously than I would've otherwise but not to the point of making me less inclined to click it... I thought that's what the author meant to do, signal that the tool is just a toy/experiment and nothing too serious.

We don't have brogrammers around so definitely cultural differences :P

>> Is profanity that frowned upon on the US (or wherever you're from)?

In reality, it's not. The way you describe profanity is exactly how everyone I know here who uses it. It's just that we also have a culture of busy-bodies who think everyone should have to adhere to their lifestyle. They are a minority, but they are this particular type of pain in the ass in most aspects of life, so it's easy for them to make a lot of noise all on their own.

It depends on situational context for me. I like it just fine when my friends swear, but if I don't know you I find it really off-putting. I definitely don't like it in a professional context. 15th anniversary of 9/11 is in 2 days, and I hope Obama doesn't say "What a shitty fucking morning that was", etc.

Personally I also find such domain names just childish (and therefore will be slightly negatively biased when first looking at them).

However I would never share them on FB, Twitter etc., as here locally (Kenya), swear words are much less accepted than in the West.

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