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Comment by pbiggar | Hacker News Reader

I think the word "F-bomb" says a lot. To many, including I guess the OP, "fuck" is a "bomb", a word that rouses them from their slumber and causes them to say "OMG, did he just say 'fuck'". And while you still have this attitude, it's always going to be effective.

This "swearing isn't cool" attitude annoys me. It isn't cool, I agree. It's just neutral; for emphasis, like "very" or "awesome".

Get off your high horse. I'll say fuck if I please.

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You can do what you wish, but be aware that when you say it, maybe YOU mean "very" or "awesome", but your listeners may hear something different. To me, the combination of a word that means sexual intercourse with a forceful tone of voice has a very unpleasant connotation of rape.

I can't keep you from saying it, but neither can you prevent that image from appearing in my mind when you say it. You're making a decision that a particular word choice is worth offending people.

In fact, I'd argue that you're choosing TO offend people. "Fuck" is an arbitrary syllable; you could just as easily say any other word. So your statement that "it's neutral" is not credible to me. If everyone DID get off their "high horse", if "fuck" became an everyday word on cereal boxes and in kindergarten classes, I bet you'd find a new word that sounded harsher, because it would no longer serve your purpose.

I'm not telling you what words to use, but I think your statement to "get off your high horse" is dishonest. You can't deliberately offend people and simultaneously ask them to stop being offended.

Your comparison to the word "very" is unintentionally apt. There's no reason to use the word "very." It's a weak word, and it signals that you just couldn't come up with anything more interesting to say.

So too with swearing just to get an audience's attention.

There's two orthogonal issues with "fuck". One is that it offends people. One is that it's kinda weak.

But the "weak" argument doesn't matter. I use weak words all the time. 95% of my words are weak. So why does it matter that I have another one?

I would say that it only matters if you buy into the first issue, that "fuck" is offensive. If you consider that fuck is just another word, then it doesn't matter that you're using yet another weak word.

Au contraire, the issue is exactly that the use of profanity is "weak" word choice. The article challenges those of us trying to create strong presentations to choose stronger words.

Why is it that if someone dislikes swearing in some regard they're considered to be on a high horse? It seems like having some view points simply isn't allowed . . which I usually find amusing as those who are against people with view points like this are usually in support of some modern, disruptive cause. ;)

It kind of reminds me of in high school where the kids who studying were told effectively to get off their high horses and the others would proudly proclaim they will not do their homework as they please.

Disliking another's way of speaking, regardless of profanity, is generally considered a high horse. Someone who doesn't like the way slumdwellers speak for example. Or someone who doesn't like the way folks trained with clear diction speak.

If you dislike the way a person communicates - not the content, but the method - then you're of the opinion there's a better way they should be talking. Hence: high horse.

I think those are different. I say "y'all" because I grew up in the southern US, and we recognize the need for a proper second-person plural here. Not everybody likes that word, but I'm not saying it in order to annoy them.

On the other hand, the very thing that DEFINES a swear word is that everyone knows that it's offensive. To choose a word BECAUSE it's offensive, then demand that people not be offended by it, is silly.

I think they're on a high horse because it's a word that hurts literally no one. I think it's fine to dislike it, be my guest. There's certainly words I don't use just because I'm not fond of them; but once you start telling OTHER people they can't use a harmless word that hurts absolutely no one because of some sort of "standard", well, that strikes me as quite a high horse indeed.

I don't get your point. You don't get to pick the language other people speak. "Fuck" is a word. It has meaning and connotation, just like other words. To most people, it does not mean "very" or "awesome", and if it did you'd see them use it that way.

Surely you choose your other words carefully, right? And you do them based on the definition that all of us English-speakers have agreed upon, right? Why should fuck be any different?

Basically, get your fucking attitude out of my language. I'll interpret the words the way I want to, based on my experience with other English-speakers; it's not my fault if you're an asshole about it.

I suspect you really wanted to post a diatribe about why profantiy shouldn't exist. If so, you need to go a whole lot deeper than "get off your high horse".

"You don't get to pick the language other people speak. "

And yet that's exactly what you've done, when you've decided the meaning of another person's speech.

You say that "it has a meaning and a connotation", but both the connotation and meaning depend on context and speaker (and also, as you've noted, on listener). It's simplistic to think that the only meaning of words is your interpretation. In a presentation, speaker and audience may interpret what the speaker said in different ways.

And your notion that "all of us English-speakers have agreed upon is laughable" - I would challenge you to visit a culture outside your own. Hell, just watch The Wire to see how wrong this idea is.

I'm not sure whether you noticed that "I'll interpret the words the way I want to" directly contradicts "You don't get to pick the language other people speak".

I wouldn't say that profanity shouldn't exist, merely that "fuck" in its modern usage is not profane. If you disagree, I'd challenge you to find a profane translation of "get your fucking attitude out of my language". It conveys aggression, but it's hardly profane.

Even if I leave out my personal opinion on the matter, this post didn't leave me scratching my head in a "wtf, is this real?" manner, but I find it insightful.

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