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Comment by Raed667 | Hacker News Reader

I find adults who are uncomfortable around profanity extremely unsettling. Emotions can be extreme (like destroying hours of work because of a git mess-up) language should be able to reflect that.

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I understand. That site is a valuable resource, though, and I’d hate it if people don’t open it because of the swear words. This is technical documentation and online tutorials, not stand-up comedy. (Although I’d love it if Jon LaJoie wrote a song on git.)

Obviously there are degrees to this. If an coworker started throwing around profanity and yelling because they got uncomfortable in a meeting, I'd question their professionalism.

Yeah but something like "this shit is fucking hard" wouldn't cross any lines with any reasonable audience.

Probably not, but there's certainly some situations involving coworkers where I'd hesitate to say that, depending on the audience.

I personally would rather not hear that. But you are free to be you.

the more we use extreme words, the less they mean. Overuse devalues the expressed emotions and then we have to create even more extreme words to describe the same emotion as few years/decades ago. I'm okay using swear words, but I'm using them less and less the older I get. Also, I respect less and less people who are enable to express complex ideas or feelings with precise words and reduce them to "shit" and "fuck". In such situations, swear words are doing more to conceal rather than express and it is really hard to relate to what the other person is saying.

"dangit" is double entendre, for fuck's sake. And now it's a good mnemonic for remembering this reference sheet.

Haha YES thank you for noticing! I feel like I don’t get enough credit for finding a cleaver as fuck swear-free url

You are uncomfortable with people who are uncomfortable with profanity?

The technical term is "metafragility".

Profanity is simply unnecessary in all but an extreme minority of cases. I judge the people who use profanity liberally to be simply unregulated as to how they dish out their emotions. Either that, or they don’t spend enough time around kids. In the remote environment, you never know who will hear what you say.

It's not a self regulation issue if they just don't consider profanity a big deal. Maybe a lack of creativity in vocabulary but that's a different issue.

Profanity is kind of a big deal by definition though. What else makes a word profane other than the fact that it’s a bigger deal to say it than the other words?

I agree that it's not strictly necessary. I've read a book that didn't use the word "is", and the book Gadsby is written without using the letter "e".

So it not being necessary is not evidence that part of a language shouldn't be used, or that it isn't easier to communicate with that part of language.

Sometimes curse words help express emotions.

If they are swearing regularly then they either are having trouble regulating their emotions, or may not have a verbal alternative to release before a physical escalation.

Both are perfectly reasonable to feel uncomfortable around.

Fuck 'em.

Swearing too much comes across as trying to seem cool or tough, and it usually has the opposite effect.

In most environments I encounter, swearing doesn't come across at all, because it's a a natural part of vocabulary that doesn't stand out other than to emphasize frustration occasionally (or also, excitement; what I'm saying is that it's really fucking useful).

If someone where to become annoyed or freaked out because I used the word fuck, or shit in conversation (not in the context of insulting another person; that's a whole different discussion), I would find it very uncomfortable to be around them because I'd be second-guessing my vocabulary constantly. I can be eloquent if I want, but sometimes a "fuck" is justified.

How you handle profanity should literary be a measure of maturity.

I don't usually like to work with people that are too nice. Its a marker of dishonesty.

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