Profanity works
37signals.com
37signals.com
Some people make effective use of swearing, but most use it as a crutch, or in a noticeably calculated way, and even if it makes me remember something I doubt that the memory is going to be favorable.
Well, and then there's guys like Carlin and Hicks and Pryor and Rock who swear a lot and yet are the funniest people on planet.
For every Carlin who could craft the use of "fuck", there are three who think "motherfucker" is a hot-wire to the funny bone.
It's probably one of the most intrinsically ugly words in the language. Racial slurs are ugly because of what they represent-- hideous and unacceptable attitudes held against innocent people, based in prejudice and ignorance-- but not on account of composition, because they're usually atomic words. These words become extremely offensive once one knows their meanings, but beforehand hold no special currency. By contrast, "M~" is a compound of two well-known and fairly innocuous words-- one completely acceptable, one edgy but mostly inoffensive-- that instantly makes the skin of even most liberal people crawl, even before its semantic subtleties are explored.
In ten years of making probably the funniest TV ever I think he said 'hell' a couple of times and that's about it.
The relief people feel today by swearing is because it defies political correctness and hypocritical holiness which are issues most people share right now in our culture. If there was no perceived repression associated with particular words they wouldn't have any effect and invoking them in unrelated discussion wouldn't make any sense.
In other words, swearing is a contemporary cultural statement akin to "stick it to The Man". I think it is fair to say that it is a pretty cheap oratory trick, since it is just an appeal to a common cause rather than an argument or viewpoint that can stand on its own merit.
That's not to say it is not funny or effectfull, it's just orthogonal to substance. It is the web 2.0 glossy UI of modern language.
2) Swearing is certainly an oratory or rhetorical technique. Its cheapness or sophistication depends on how it's used. I'm not pointing to this as the zenith of eloquent profanity, but phrases like "Jesus H. tap-dancing Christ," from the movie Blues Brothers, have had as much lasting impact on colloquial speech as Virgil or Homer did, in their day.
As a writer, I consider the whole english language fair game. Obviously, you shouldn't swear for no reason, but as David points out, swear words can be effectively used for emphasis and to add some extra passion.
Reason #2: I hope that I am smart enough and have enough integrity to communicate without invoking the taboo. Choosing to make the trade between rational, descriptive language and taboo language in order to evoke an emotional response in your audience is a compromise of reason. It is the difference between reading The Economist and listening to Howard Stern -- one attempts (however successfully) to make a reasoned and informative argument about a topic and the other attempts to persuade by appealing to the primitive and more basic nature.
Reason #3: It conveys a lack of respect for propriety. Personal liberty is an ideal that I support. The abandonment of social norms is not. I do not think that everyone should stop cursing, nor am I a fan of the prohibition of materials and media containing language whose intent is to offend. I do consider refraining from partaking to be a personal decision to live by a more stringent moral standard.
Your second reason is opposed to cursing only in certain situations, roughly trying to be rational.
Your third reason is in favor of cursing infrequently, not never. (Unless you think propriety should be respected 100% in all situations.)
Therefore, you have not given any blanket objections to cursing, only reasons to curse less frequently.
I have no comment about whether I agree with that, I just want to be clear about what you did and did not argue for.
Further, I wanted to make the case that refraining from cursing is not necessarily out of fear. I chose to refrain from cursing because I think there is a better way to behave.
Two big problems with that statement:
1) Exceptional circumstances are by definition exceptional, and hence validate or invalidate whatever behaviour is appropriate. I never want to drink piss. You might say it's a clear, permanent principle in my life. But if I'm dying of thirst in the desert, I may well do. That's an exceptional circumstance.
2) A "code of conduct", however you care to define it, is a load of crap, and you'll be a better person if you come to terms with that. The world is varied and changing. You should behave in the way that's best given the situation you're faced with, not based on some sort of code that you defined some time ago. You can have principles to guide your behaviour, but even those have to be up for review when faced with circumstances that they don't fit.
It's your choice whether you swear or not, but don't think of yourself as superior in any way (e.g. "My momma raised me right") just because you've made this one of your core principles. Your momma didn't raise you right. She raised you differently.
A personal code of conduct is not "a load of crap." It has a limited but useful role in framing and shaping behavior. Like any system of guidance, it exists to provide the default and usual path. Each programming language culture has its own code of conduct, encouraging some behavior and discouraging other behavior, that stems from the culture's principals. Of course, there are exceptions and we should be vigilant in knowing what justifies an exception. However, just because there are exceptions does not mean that learning the code of conduct of a language is useless or that documents thereof are loads of crap.
What do you mean, "you'll be a better person"?
I never said that refraining from swearing was a core principal, in fact it is far from a core principal. I find cursing with abandon to be a petty indulgence and unbecoming. However, being raised to appreciate why things are inappropriate is better than not passing along our cultural heritage of propriety and respect.
I understand that it is more popular to refrain from instilling a strong sense of what is appropriate and inappropriate in children these days because of the influences of moral relativism. I believe this is a disservice and negligent parenting. I do not presume that my sense of right and wrong should be the sense that others must accept. Nor do I believe that my views on what constitutes correct behavior at such a fine level of granularity as word choice make me superior to anyone else in any absolute sense.
Within the context of word choice, being more precise, informative and salient is better than talking about excrement, fornication or damnation.
Exceptional circumstances do not invalidate codes of conduct.
This statement clearly defines a "code of conduct" as a rigid set of rules that should always apply. Now you say:
[a code of conduct] has a limited but useful role in framing and shaping behavior.
That contradicts the previous statement. I'm glad you changed your mind, but why not admit you did?
Within the context of word choice, being more precise, informative and salient is better than talking about excrement, fornication or damnation.
I don't disagree with that. I don't swear for no reason - at least not in writing. I merely disagreed with your apparent sense of superiority. Since you've relinquished that too, I guess we're in agreement.
PS: Btw, it's "Principle". "Principal" is an official rank. Principle is a guideline.
How did I come off as having a 'sense of superiority'? Please inform me so that I can avoid doing the same in the future.
I always get principle and principal confused, thanks for clarifying.
By saying that your way of being raised -- not to swear -- was "right".
When referring to the original meanings, I think it is very vulgar to use those words, for instance saying "Take a s---" or "f------ your girlfriend". Those make me cringe. But those same words still work for me as exclamation, as in "S---! I lost my wallet!" or "His house is so f------ huge!".
I think that swear words are useful in this context because the social norms against using them keep them relatively scarce, which gives them value. When marketers have overhyped everything ("Extreme Toothpaste! The Ultimate Chili Dog! The Greatest Athlete Ever!"), the scarcely used swear words are valuable for conveying meaning because everything else is cheapened. If you could buy "Whitest F------ Teeth" toothpaste, swear words would not convey any additional meaning and would probably be used less.
This reminds me of a beautiful movie, Idiocracy, and the "Carl's Jr. Extra Big-ass Fries". The motto of Carl's Jr. in this hilarious 26th-century dystopia is "Fuck you, I'm eating".
Namely: This this this and this are wrong. Why? Because I said they're wrong.
Similarly I've found that when talking to people, sometimes dropping a 'fuck' in as punctuation scores gold. I worked as an electrician, and when I add the 'F' in there, people recognise it isn't my opinion I'm expressing when it comes to doing something, it's a simple fact.
Again, something I've seen on the construction site. Workers regularly swear, but when working swear words begin to illustrate numerous things. How good/bad something is, how urgent something is, etc. When someone says grab a new fucking bolt, I know they don't need one now, I know they're holding something likely very heavy. When someone uses a swear word, I don't walk, I don't run, I sprint cause I know someone's going to end up hurt.
So as a writer, and blue/white-collar worker I'd say swearing is a fundamental type of punctuation. It makes a point that an exclamation point wouldn't. It's wrongly seen as vulgar to swear, when originally it was only seen as vulgar to swear AT SOMEONE, but victorian times supposedly perverted this. However, I'd consider it returning more to the original sensibilities, and that if the wireless operator on the Titanic had put a fuck in there, the other ships might not have thought they were partying when the ship was sinking.
How would that work?
C-Fucking-Q-Fucking-D, Assholes!
Profanity is just words, but like all words, they have a tendency to piss people off. So I use "heck", "durn", "shucky-bob" and any other ridiculously non-profane words I can come up with. Then when I add a "hell', "damn", "fuck' or the like, it stands out.
When I was in my twenties and in the service, every other word was profane. When you use something all the time, it just doesn't work any more. Like a good spice, the trick is the moderate and appropriate application at the right time.
I love profanity. It's even more fun now that I squelch it up and down to suit the occasion. It's almost like playing a musical instrument. Now that I rarely use it any more, it's all the more enjoyable.
Writing, on the other hand, rarely calls for it . . . except in contexts like fictional writing where it can be used to paint a character, usually someone with a low IQ.
And it's not very effective in non-fiction writing / blogging, but for the rare instances it's meant to be funny. If I'm writing some fuming diatribe, typing just to "let off steam," or whatever, I've found that it is much more effective (and satisfying) to craft perfectly-reasoned logical sentences about the reason(s) I'm pissed off without the repeated use of four-letter words.
edits: indie also has a difficult time crafting logical or gramatickally-correct sentences when tired ;)
I have a feeling that if I were a better programmer I could come up with a great analogy here, but alas, I'm a hack.
"Profanity Works" is a perfect example of trolling (controversial and irrelevant message in an online community, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response or disrupting normal on-topic discussion).
Why are we biting? Is the obvious trollness obscured by the fact that it comes from 37Signals?
I can't imagine how "fucking shoes" would be useful.
But as the article suggests, It's only when I'm really passionate about something or if I want to make something really clear.
I only use it for good, not evil. :)
Eventually, we will probably have new curse words for english.
The social danger of dysphemism, of course, is that some people will react not with disgust toward the target (the exam) but rather toward the person using such language. This leads to an inherent riskiness and edginess to so-called "profanity". However, a lot of people like risky behaviors, so this results in a proliferation of ironic or even positive uses, e.g. "my car is the shit" or "life is so fucking beautiful", that are often used to build camaraderie.