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Comment by kbenson | Hacker News Reader

Last year, it was the Interplanetary Transport System, but now Musk has regressed to using the original, cheeky "code name" BFR, in which the B stands for big, the R stands for rocket, and the F stands for fun. (Not really).

I'm always astounded that apparently we still can't say fuck lest some bogeyman (real or imaginary) jump out and make you regret it.

It's a fucking word. For fuck's sake. I mean, at the point where it's used more often as garnish in it's various adverb and noun forms than it's original verb form, you know, to fuck, how bad can it really be and why do we need to penalize the usage so?

Now watch this get auto-depressed by HN's incendiary comment detection filters.

Edit: If you see this reach the top, please downvote or unvote. I'm interested in this topic, but it doesn't deserve to overshadow real discussion about the submission.

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Anything can be trivialized if you detest social norms enough.

Fake examples:

> It took me forever to find a good font for my webcomic that wasn't comic sans.

I'm astounded that apparently we can't use a perfects good font, lest some bogeyman jump out and make you regret it.

It's a font! For Microsoft Bob's sake. How bad can it really be and why do we need to penalize the usage so?

> John Smith, 56, was arrested for indecent exposure in a playground while laughing maniacally.

I'm astounded that apparently we can't show our entire bodies in public lest some bogeyman jump out and make you regret it.

It's a body part. I mean, it's how all other animals live - how bad can it really be and why do we need to penalize the usage so?

> Riots ensue as it is leaked that all Burger King meat has been human meat, this whole time.

I'm astounded that apparently we can't eat human meat lest some bogeyman jump out and make you regret it.

It's meat! For meat's sake. I mean, at the point where a human is dead, why can't we eat the meat? How bad can it really be and why do we need to penalize the usage so?

To be clear, the difference I'm calling out here is not that the cutural norm is stupid, but that it's only enforced in specific contexts for no apparent gain. I wouldn't say a large proportion of people are walking around in public naked, but a large proportion do swear in the course of normal speaking. Really, it's the news agencies which are the worst offenders in this regard, which is doubly bad because they will actually sacrifice clarity and accuracy to avoid these words. [1][2][3] Try searching for "cock" in any of the referenced articles. What does that achieve?

1: http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/31/politics/anthony-scaramucci/in...

2: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/07/27/anthony-scaramucc...

3: http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/anthony-scaramucci-steve-ba...

I totally get your opinion that language should be used more freely. But at the end of the day - different things are appropriate in different contexts. Some of these we feel strongly about, others, we may not.

> A bathing suit is not considered appropriate at a wedding.

> Emoji is not considered appropriate at a funeral.

> White pants are not considered appropriate after Labor Day.

> Swearing is not considered appropriate in certain styles of journalism.

All of these, when viewed at a low enough level of abstraction (we're all just atoms!) make no sense. But that doesn't mean we should do away with them all.

For all those examples, there are situations where that becomes appropriate. I'm not arguing that childrens programming needs to incorporate swearing, or that regular adult television needs to (it already has for the most part), but when a news article can't accurately quote someone when it's integral to the story or reference the name of what the article is about, they are doing it wrong. I greatly care about information accuracy and historical accuracy. If ever there are times when the journalistic rule about including swearing should be relaxed, when the entire article is about an utterance that contains a swear word is one of those occassions.

I don't understand why civility revolts so many people these days. I tell my son that he can use the F word whenever it makes contextual sense and also doesn't offend other people. For instance, he can use it around me, because to me it's just a word. I don't care. He can use it around his friends when it makes sense. But, he had better not use it around his grandparents.

Is it such a bad thing to ty to empathize with others and avoid offending when it's clear that an action or speech probably will? Maybe it's because these days speech is often read by potentially millions of people. And, in those cases, it's almost impossible to not offend someone. So, since it's probably impossible to not offend someone, one might as well just let loose and not worry if you offend everyone? Is that the logic - to avoid overthinking and cognitive overload?

> I tell my son that he can use the F word whenever it makes contextual sense

To be clear, I'm talking about news articles accurately referencing and representing what they are reporting. I'm not sure how you can get more contextually appropriate than that. I'm not talking about how professional communication should use swearing because it's fun. I'm talking about how they feel the need to go out of their way to not accurately represent the name of what they are talking about or the actual words that are the cause of the news itself.

It's like people being offended if my last name is "babcock" because it has "cock" in it. At some point it switches from one party making an effort to present themselves civilly to the other party being uncivil by taking umbrage over small, inconsequential items. In this case, news agencies are apparently so worried over the latter that journalism suffers (we'll call the article in question here journalism, and leave the Scaramucci news articles out of it to prevent muddying the issue...). I think that's a real shame.

It's offensive when journalists feel they need to dance around particular words. It smacks of white knighting in defense of the putatively large group of sensitive Puritans who will take offense at accurately quoting a naughty word.

Down the slippery slope to trigger words and microagressions.

Musk is also "dancing around particular words" by using initials.

> Really, it's the news agencies which are the worst offenders in this regard, which is doubly bad because they will actually sacrifice clarity and accuracy to avoid these words.

News agencies do not sell clarity and accuracy, they sell advertising views. Enough of the suppliers of advertising views will stop supplying that good for news agencies to sell if they encounter a “fuck”, even in a context where it wouldn't earn an FCC fine, that news agencies have a clear economic incentive to avoid the word.

Yeah, I understand the chain that causes this, but the root is the same. The advertisers are only upset because of those same bogeyman.

The problem is ultimately those people that care that the word is used, but not why or how.

To me that feels like something society is struggling with lately. People looking for something to belong to, and attaching themselves to groups and causes without fully understanding the cause. Promoting civility is good. Condemning certain words in all contexts is not about civility. It's about proving you belong.

It's a big world out there, and we're all just trying to get along.

I'm not in the least bit offended by swearing and swear liberally amongst friends, but curse words (taboo words) do exist, and some people are bothered by them. It's not an expensive courtesy to just not swear to strangers, so why not extend that courtesy?

I'm a big believer in the right to offend, but that doesn't mean we should do so needlessly.

I agree about "needlessly," but in this case they're providing sub-par information because they don't want to write the word.

If the actual name is Big Fucking Rocket, maybe that's what media should report.

They presumably call it the Big Fucking Rocket at SpaceX.

But if Musk says "Big Fucking Rocket" on stage, TV news can't quote him. That's counterproductive to his goals, but using a heavy implication both allows him a broader audience and lets every adult know they've got the 'cheeky' name for it.

It's the Big Falcon Rocket.

Big Flaming Rocket.

I'm sorry I can't find a link to the study right now (I'll add a link if I find it), but one of the most fascinating lectures in my college linguistics class was about swear words, and this exact question. The lecturer claimed that hearing or seeing a swear word has a physiological effect on most people, not unlike being slapped in the face. However, when you replace the text with asterisks or beep it out, the effect is diminished, even if the audience knows exactly what's being replaced.

In that context, it makes sense to avoid using swear words in more professional settings if you want to avoid giving the audience the associated emotional reaction; it's distracting at best and offensive at worst, and it's easier just to find another way to communicate which word was meant.

> It's a fucking word.

There's a lot of words that require some sort of care in their use lest some of the potential connotations carried offend or don't communicate intended meaning.

You might not care about this word -- or, more likely, you care very much about its use, otherwise you wouldn't be fucking talking about it like fucking pedant who is so fucking proud of his fucking adolescent pretensions of having thought about language -- but you probably care about some words and how their varied and overloaded use can affect communication.

(There's a much more diplomatic way I could have my little apositive screed up in the last paragraph. That's part of the point.)

Is this an American cultural thing, or are other cultures just as averse to public swearing?

It's not particularly more professional to cheekily use an obvious substitute in place of 'fucking', either. If you are saying "big ... fun ... rocket" or "big freakin' rocket" anyone over the age of 6 will know what you are doing and, if they are inclined to feel uncomfortable or offended, will still be so.

So for the most part I would say "either swear or don't", but if you are going to play that game, you need to be better at it, and call it something like "a big functional rocket" or "a big futuristic rocket", which is plausible, and then remain completely straight-faced, forever, never admitting in public or private there could be any other meaning for the acronym, ever. Leave historians a hundred years from now guessing.

"Wink wink, I'm not cussing!!!" is just another version of "I'm not touching you!!!".

Big Falcon Rocket?

It's largely an American thing.

False. The Japanese language itself doesn't really have any swear words let alone the culture being averse to using any swear words in public.

GP asked if only Americans are averse to swearing. Japanese don't have swearing so they're not averse to it. So this is not a counterexample as far as I can see.

Taboo and forbidden words apparently exist in all human cultures. There are a few other things, too, and some things that you could expect to be there are missing :)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_universal

There aren't any real swear words in Japanese. So no it's not just an American thing.

How do you explain this?

http://www.youswear.com/index.asp?language=Japanese

Fakku? That's a transliteration from English. Most Japanese speakers generally agree that Japanese doesn't "really" have any of its own swear words. Yes if you get technical there are some like those listed on that site, but generally there are not, it is a very polite language.

Try calling your female Japanese friends "manko" and see if you still have female Japanese friends.

Please see my above comment. "generally agree" and "Yes if you get technical there are some" and "but generally there are not"

You just picked out one example. That defies my definition of generally?

In my experience the public face of Japanese society is very polite, but that's distinct from what can be said with the language, and what people say with the language in private face contexts. It also varies to some degree by class, but you could say the same thing about English.

Also, loanwords like fakku are a legitimate part of the language. The katakana script is used almost exclusively for them and many sentences have them, spoken and written.

Americans love violence but sex and swearing is evil horrible stuff.

Taboo words serve a function. They let you communicate something in a way would be costly if overheard in public, thus you can use them as expensive signals, so they make great emotional intensifiers: you only use them if you really mean it. If we were freer with these words, they would be less taboo, thus less costly, and thus less useful. Eventually a new set of taboo words would arise.

Yeah, fuck your opinion about the word fuck in particular!

F stands for fun. (Not really).

F does stand for fun. A lot of it. It's really down to attitude.

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