Swearing
zachholman.com
zachholman.com
Most tech talks I've seen in the past 5 years have been terrible. I see the presenters tweeting that they still need to do their slides while flying to the conference. Obviously they haven't rehearsed that all and it shows in their presentation. They read from the slides. The code examples don't work. They throw up pictures of lolcats and other memes to get a cheap laugh. And occasionally they'll swear to seem edgy. Most of this is mistaken as connecting with the audience. It's sorta like when you watch a horror movie that just throws in a loud noise all of a sudden to startle you. The result is that you appear scared but you can still walk away and think it was a bad movie.
The best talks I've seen have been practiced to the point that they seem natural. The presenter knows his content thoroughly. The slides are informative and all support the content of the talk. The talk isn't a thinly veiled vendor pitch for the presenter's consultancy or company. The talk isn't also just a summary of introductory information. There's real substance. Whether swearing is used or not seems to have little impact on that, but in my experience the best presenters manage to deliver a compelling talk by throwing out cheap rhetoric.
Most people simply lack these skills and worse so are unaware of them. Unfortunately those who see any 'anti-swearing' stories and comments are quick to label those people as puritans sitting on high horses and miss the bigger picture.
This sentence is you making an MS joke.
It definitely reinforces the idea that, in this case, the swearing is a device used to draw attention to the speaker rather than the speaker's point. And that was the thrust of the original criticism.
I usually don't even notice or care if someone curses in a presentation, but my douche-radar starts going off if I get the sense that it's being done for self-aggrandizement. I don't get the feeling that Zach is a douche-y kind of guy. But one of his 'personas' might be leaning that direction.
Is this where the technology community is going? Do we really need 'personas' in addition to technical accomplishments and good communication skills? Are technologists going to start looking more and more like wide receivers?
Some of them swear, a lot. If it's natural, I don't really see an issue - and if it's situationally appropriate. A technical talk to a group of developers may not be marred by an f-bomb. A presentation to a customer almost always will be.
This is my problem with the "Swearing is a good tool" argument. Too often, and I'm not saying it's necessarily the case with Zach, people equate cussing with being edgy or controversial. But cussing is a shortcut; it takes the easy way to "edginess" because it takes advantage of how we've been raised to not swear in mixed company.
So, to some people, this otherwise bland statement qualifies as edgy: "Javascript is fucking awesome and fuck you if you don't think so."
I think a good rule of thumb is, if your point is uninteresting without the use of a cuss word, then don't use it. Or come up with a better point.
If your phrasing is reliant on the cuss word, as in, "[insert company name] can go fuck themselves", then keep it. But only if your evidence and support is just as strong as that statement.
That's my problem with people hating on the use of cuss words. They are a stylistic flourish, and they can be used well, or poorly, but they do not deserve disproportionate attention. Someone who uses cuss words all the time in a presentation is just the presentation version of the guy who wears a bright green suit to every social event. They are failing to use style effectively.
That's why I cringe with every f-word. Zach may think that helps give him his edge, but IMHO, it just distracts. He already has his edge.
Zach, you've reached the big time now, so I challenge you to abandon the crutches. We'll all be better off. Try it; you'll see.
F-bombs-away as far as I'm concerned, but don't pretend you're Howard Stern and I'm a 'loyal follower'. We're coders, let's talk code. Funny is one thing, wit is fine, a little punk rock in your presentation never hurt anybody. But the idea that we need to craft ourselves into a 'brand' is crass to me.
So I ask you: is your objection to the use of the word, or to the notion of a consistent self?
(Every act of communication is an attempt to manipulate: to teach, to convince, to humour, etc. Saying that is almost meaningless in this context, unless you have specific moral wrongs in mind.)
I like the way you phrased that: 'consistent self'. It's true we have lots of 'selves,' but hopefully we work to integrate those and connect them to some truth about us that's more than simply 'build a following.'
The idea of a persona as a 'brand', it seems to me reduces too quickly to commericalism or ego or both.
At least you didn't write 'f-bomb', which is probably the most idiotic thing I've ever read. Now we can file that word next to its siblings 'a-bomb' and 'h-bomb' and hope that it stays underground, hidden, unused. As a message and threat to the world: Don't make us use it ever again! Annoy us and we're going to drop the [ahf]-bomb (depending on scale, I guess) on you!
You have a physical reaction when you hear a sound? Have you considered therapy? Or meditation? You have an unnecessary, irrational response that is affecting your appreciation of the world.
If this were a drooping eyelid, or an eye deficiency such as short-sightedness, you would take steps to correct it. If this were super-sensitivity to sunlight would you wear sunglasses, or demand that the sun not rise? You perceive your reaction to be Zach's fault, you blame Zach and state that Zach should change his behavior.
This is absurd.
Why? Do you really think this type of comment adds something valuable to the discussion?
Valuable??? LOL. We're having 150+ comments on swearing. I'm sorry. What exactly are you expecting to get out of this whole thing? That we'll all go wash our mouths out with soap?
There's no suggestion that the cringe is an unhealthy personal reaction - quite the opposite, it's an observational cringe, and the implication seems to be that Zach would do better without swearing, since he already has good arguments and an attentive audience.
Sometimes personal therapy is a good idea - and sometimes it's a good idea to call people out on their manipulative tendencies (I think you're pulling this thread off-topic, for example).
However, edw519, is specifically making the assertion (no mere suggestion) that in some way his ability to absorb the information that Zach presents is "distracted" (and I assume that means in some way reduced or impaired). All because Zach uses these letters: 'f' 'u' 'c' 'k' one after the other. That's not rational. Its victim mentality.
Imagine a world where one had to moderate what one said or did based on whether or not someone might be offended. Are you going to require that all women wear a burqa so as not to offend our fundamentalist muslim citizens?
No. The idea is preposterous.
Oh, but when it comes to your squeamish morality, thats reasonable and Zach should modify his behavior.
Since there is no objective moral reason for Zach not to swear, it comes down to the relationship between Zach and edw519. edw519 is saying either "don't swear or i wont listen", or "poor me, you swear and i get all distracted and just can't help myself". One is a threat and one is victimhood, and neither have a consequence for Zach.
So my advice on meditation is sincerely offered. If one is going to go around in life being upset or distracted by "fuck", that's a pretty sad way to live. If you give someone else power over your emotions or ability to process information that's a victim mentality.
Whenever I saw that I thought "Then don't drop the fucking glass!"
If I were to say "Every time I hear the f-word I stab myself in the leg with a pocket-knife while screaming the lord's prayer at the top of my lungs", I think we'd all agree that I have a fucking problem. But as long as I'm just "cringing", well then that's entirely normal behavior and the other person needs to stop whatever the fuck it is they are doing.
Only deaf people and psychopaths probably have no reaction to spoken words, the overwhelming majority of people, however, does - one of the reasons lie detectors are even possible.
My point is that, unlike lying to the FBI, hearing the word "fuck" should elicit no more of a response than "potato".
Or were you saying that cringing is an entirely reasonable response to hearing the word "potato"?
Your point is nothing but spinning a figure of speech out of context and exaggerating it ad absurdum and neither add anything to the discussion at hand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_speech
WELCOME TO THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT
SCOTUS Justice John Marshall Harlan II
To be honest, I don't understand the whole debate that's been raging for the past week. So Zach used a naughty word. So fucking what? Are we as a community really that petty?
The blog post states that "I seldom swear much outside of my slides" and "...it’s a crafted persona". Unless I am not understanding correctly, Holman is swearing as a calculated move which he believes allows him to communicate more effectively.
The xkcd comic decries filtering expression of one's personality out of fear. Here Holman is slightly altering (filtering?) his own personality, or at least creating a persona with subtle differences, for perceived benefit. You might even say he's doing it out of fear of mediocrity, though I would hesitate to put it so strongly.
People are talking about whether swearing actually is more effective, not about whether sensibilities have been offended. Holman is not the guy in the comic that others are trying to chastise for being himself.
Another point is that just because something was discovered a long time ago doesn't mean it's out-of-date, irrelevant and should be replaced. Our society now seems obsessed with changing everything for the sake of changing and ignoring the foundations we have been given.
Thanks again. Seriously.
The article, and the OP, aren't saying throw in all the swear words you can find into what you say. Yours were just deragatory and purposefully put there as some out of context hyperbole.
Nice try but you didn't provide a very good argument.
The point here is that people have opinions on this. Which is great. OPINIONS are great people. The simple fact that you're discussing this is because you have an opinion on it.
When someone goes out of their way to provide emotion in a speech that should reflect that the person cares a lot about what they're talking about. He uses swearing because he has an opinion and strong opinions that he feels necessitate using strong words.
That's the same emotion and strong opinions that people like you have towards this particular topic of swearing in a talk.
It isn't any different. He chooses to communicate how he does because it shows emotion. Why does everything tech related have to be so dry? Many people love their Apple products (just an example) because they relate to it in a way. They have strong opinions and strong emotions about them.
This is no different.
This is a lesson that i keep learning over and over again in life through my various amateur creative endeavors (music, writing, art etc)...just because you feel an emotion when you're creating something, doesn't mean that that emotion is somehow magically conveyed. This is cringingly obvious whenever i read old writing or listen to old music...i remember the emotions i felt at the time but, often, none of it comes across with fresh eyes.
If you want to convey an emotion, you'll have to figure out a method to creatively help people adopt a frame of mind, which then allows them to be receptive to your subsequent message. Cursing out of the blue isn't enough to do that. It's jarring and cringey, and you (or him) will look back on it in 5 years and realise that.
It doesn't/shouldn't take away from the main content of a presentation though.
If he wasn't effective as a communicator he wouldn't be doing talks in front of large numbers of people would he? Clearly he's doing something right.
The point I guess that I'm trying to make is that we shouldn't be so strung up on one or two words that show up in a presentation. The overall picture is what matters the most. If he's doing that well then who are we to argue with what he does?
Everyone presents their ideas differently. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates… Meg whatever from HP…
Some are great, some are terrible, a lot are inbetween. But I'm in the camp of people that just simply don't care so long as the message is clear. If I'm learning something, I don't care if someone swears. It just doesn't bother me. Maybe that's a problem, but there are at least two sides to this.
People that care about the swearing and those that don't. I'm sure there are others who just don't give a damn either, just like me.
If what he is doing is so wrong and terrible, then he won't be speaking anywhere again right? The concensus would be "he isn't effective at communicating and uses bad language that offends our audience. We can't have him."
At which point, he'd be forced to change, or not speak.
You're welcome to an opinion, same as I do. But you can't bend over for every single person out there. If we had to worry about people's feelings all the time the world would be dull and dry.
I would agree there are limitations to what someone should do or say in a presentation though. I don't think the f-bomb once or twice is a problem though. If he was dropping it left and right, that's another story altogether.
As you allude to, it is easy to offend people unintentionally, often without realizing it. In certain parts of the Middle East, crossing your legs in such a way that the bottom of your shoe or foot is exposed is highly offensive, but most Americans wouldn’t even notice. The movie "The Last Airbender" had some issues in Britain because "bender" has a slang meaning there that has nothing to do with either elemental control or reshaping objects.
You cannot worry about the possibility of offending anyone if you want to make any kind of point at all. Rather, you take your audience into account. If I am addressing a group of Infantrymen, swearing might be quite appropriate and might both help me connect better with my audience and emphasize the part I really want them to get. If I am addressing a group of Church Elders, then swearing is probably distracting at best.
Give me a break.
Sure, if you're holidaying in Saudi Arabia, you shouldn't walk around badmouthing Mohammed. But for the most part you can be certain that a small percentage of your actions will offend a small percentage of the people you meet. Such is life.
Fun fact: here in the UK, the word "git" is mildly offensive (I mentioned GitHub amongst family and got a bit of an incredulous look). The company the guy works at is an offensive word.
Git is not a harsh word, it's used more playfully than anything IME.
Anyway, since helloworld1 is a newly registered account, and is acting like a dick, and I thought it might be worthwhile to say that I'm not helloworld1.
I'm not opposed to swearing in presentations, or anywhere for that matter. I don't cringe when I read F-bombs nor do I care if you have the word "Fuck" embroidered on your Calvins. Swearing says more about your abilities as a speaker then it does your content... that's the problem.
http://wekeroad.com/2011/11/08/some-people-not-have-way
Profanity can be a great way to drive your point home. It can also be a crutch, one that lets you avoid having to actually come up with something interesting to say.
I agree with you in the statement: Profanity can be a great way to drive your point home. If that is true then Conery's argument, in the derogatory form he uses, makes no sense.
PS: Referring to "fuck/fucking" by using "the F-bomb" makes the person look just... bad.
When people become completely adjusted to swearing and it no longer helps 'drive a point home' (For some people), what will these people rely on then?
All I can do is shrug my shoulders. I really enjoy Zach's presentations, and I hope he keeps doing what he's doing.
In my opinion, in today's popular culture profanity doesn't hold much weight at all as an effective tool for communication. While profanity is often used by people who are communicating something passionate and emotional, it is used just as often in a completely flippant and emotionally detached manner.
For people who are offended by profanity it may evoke a negative emotional response but I find for people who are comfortable with profanity, it carries very little weight or meaning except for the fact that the speaker couldn't be bothered to come up with a more meaningful word to use.
I will acknowledge that because most of society is so lazy in their use of language, there is a strong relationship between a person who is communicating passionately and the frequency of profanity usage. This is why movie writers so often lace passages of emotionally intense dialog with profanity because it reflects what we hear in the real world. I however find that relationship to be one directional. The use of a profanity doesn't imply any kind of emotion in of itself because of how prevalent flippant usage of profanity is.
I'm aware that is a personal perspective and I may not be in the majority with these views.
Zach's point is different. It's about making a connection, establishing commonality and empathy at a human level. Carefully chosen profanity can be a branding tool; it can establish commonality with a certain group of people, and depending on when it's used, empathy too. Just about all of us swear when we accidentally hurt ourselves, for example; if we were acting that out and didn't swear (no matter how mildly), we'd seem more fake somehow, like we were pretending to be invincible or something.
And Zach has his "brand", it comes fairly easily to him, more easily than other approaches. If it turns off people who don't have that in common, that's OK.
And that connection is what in turn makes richer communication possible than dry exposition.
"Swearing is a strong tool. It can be a particularly strong tool during presentations."
I get that Zach believes he is building a connection and empathy by using profanity. My argument is the same there as well. I personally believe that profanity doesn't work well as a tool for creating personal connections and empathy either.
There is a group of people that thinks: "Oh man! he used the f-word in his public talk. He's so passionate and edgy. I feel connected to his disregard for old-fashioned professionalism."
I would suspect the group of people that think along those lines is rather small. I would also suspect that even for those people that feel a connection, the net result of the use of that profanity in their overall take-away from the talk is a tiny positive.
Like the way a salesperson or a teacher is fake, when you meet them in those roles, rather than in a social setting of equals.
This barrier of "professionalism" is exactly what the careful use of profanity is trying to puncture. It's not the only way to puncture it; and not everyone is comfortable with puncturing it, or having it punctured. But it may be worth it for the people who prefer the closer connection.
Professionalism, almost by definition, implies distance. Your emphasis on it actually convinces me that profanity is even more useful in presentations than I thought it was; I very seldom use profanity except in the company of people I know very well, but having had this exchange with you (combined with TFA) I may use it when I next give a talk.
One of these things is not like the other.
That's not a bad thing. Steve Jobs still changed history by taking the stage and talking millions of people into buying touchscreen phones, but it's best not to get an overinflated self-image about what we do.
I say effort instead of result because I know people who are not eloquent at all and struggle with it. The difference between them and others is that they make an effort (The world tends to focus on results and not on getting there), their sincerity, and what they have to say can stand on it's own even despite the lack of great elocution in how they speak their ideas and works would stand on their own.
Presenters who cuss and are actually good presenters have made a decision that their audience will deal with cussing, and therefore it is a stylistic flourish they can use. Now, they may be wrong—but a few blog posts don't prove that. People no longer being interested in their presentations prove that.
I don’t view it this way. I’m less concerned about my overall reach than I am with connecting with my audience. Put another way: I’m content with losing a handful of people if that means I connect much stronger with everyone else.
I'd be really surprised if any of my professional peers were offended if I were giving a talk and dropped in a swear word or two ... and I'd rather do so, and get a good reaction from a smaller percentage than water down my enthusiasm and reach nobody strongly.
That said, if for you the only options are swearing or watering down your enthusiasm, by all means swear.
He is implying that given his stated goal of a passionate reader base, profanity is a necessary evil. I dispute the necessary part.
I understand there's a certain showmanship that goes with technical presentations, but this quote kinda sounds like something a reality show star would say.
"Amongst the best things we do is we breed children and we raise them, we make love to each other, we adore each other, we’re affectionate and fond of each other. Those are the good things we do.
"And they would say ‘How odd, that the language for the awful things is used casually all the time.’ ‘Oh the traffic was agony. It was hell, it was cruel. Oh, it was torture waiting in line!’ They’d say ‘You use words like torture! That’s the worst word!’
"And yet if we use the f-word, which is the word for generating our species, for showing physical affection one to another, then we’re taken off air and accused of being wicked and irresponsible and a bad influence to children. Now, we’re part of this culture so we often don’t question it, but if you think of someone from outside it, it is very strange.
-- Stephen Fry
Samuel L Jackson swore so much he crossed the line from emotion to a parody of himself doing it. Also, he got to read "Go the ---- to Sleep".
You're debasing the most expensive currency in your wallet. Every word is costly, that's why Strunk and White tell you to get rid of them.
I swear once per quarter or so at work. I reserve it for the worst decisions, organizational maneuvers, designs, and code. And when I do, people notice.
If you use these words regularly you've got to find some way to really swear again, when it's called for. You could raise your voice or start mixing in some inappropriate animals.
I'm fine with being prepared for your talk, and knowing your topic. But spending 2-3 weeks on a slide deck and crafting a "persona" for your public presence sounds a lot like something an entertainer does.
To me, this seems like something you do when you're more interested in your self-image than you are about your topic. And that bugs me a little, because if you just come to your audience well-prepared, knowledgable, and genuine, I don't think you'd have to rely on an edgy "persona" at all.
But if people like it and learn from your talks, I guess it's all good. Just doesn't sit right with me.
And -- there's no exclusion between topic and persona. But you can have many topics, but you rarely get multiple public personas. For many people, and I'd bet Zach is one of them, their reputation is their biggest asset. Being careful about it seems entirely sensible to me.
Perhaps it's an American thing, but in Britain I'm not aware of anyone I know who'd react in hysterics at the thought of a strong word appearing in something as public as a slide deck!
Swearing at someone can be extremely rude, but using such words passively to add emphasis seems perfectly normal to me.
The following video sums it up nicely IMO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_osQvkeNRM&feature=youtu...
If you're delivering a professional presentation to people you know, swear away. If you're doing it at a conference with people you don't, you appear clueless. It's the vocabulary version of turning up to a business of suits in t-shirt and shorts (or vice versa). If you're particularly powerful, you can get away with it, like Zuck does. If you're not, you can't.
Honestly, I'm surprised holman stuck strongly to this. It's childish, and, more importantly, it's fake. Swearing in the slides is fake. As the original blog post that pointed this out mentioned: "fucking" almost always has no semantic payload at all. None. It's an exclamation mark. If you want to build up some sort of chummy relationship by using swear words, put it in your spoken text. Putting it in the slides? Tacky. Clueless.
Yes, there's a whole ream of uptight wankers who make it their business to be proper. There are even TV comedies about such awful people. [1] Don't think you speak for all of us.
it makes it sound like you don't understand the social conventions of the position you're in
LOL. Yes, we're all for knowing our place in the world here at HN!
In my _professional_ life, I am not aware of anyone who would bat an eyelash at swearing in a professional presentation. Indeed, some of the best panels I've attended at well-known conferences have been pretty rough, language-wise. But they were, indeed, great panels!
It seems like about half of the commenters here are having trouble parsing the relationship between content and delivery.
Never once has this discussion been about the offensive nature of swear words in slide decks or presentations. It's about whether or not swearing adds value or is just used to cover up a speaker's inadequacies in capturing the audience's attention.
A friend of mine took a "Business Communication" class recently and started getting on my ass about my communication at the office saying it wasn't professional enough, I don't feel that I should be toning down my language or using "less emotion" because its how I communicate; I'm not a god damn robot! Looking at my emails over the last few months I find I'm getting more positive and personal responses from my "informal" emails than I am from the formal ones.
People like talking to people, don't change that.
I'm not going to tone down my talks (unless it's inappropriate for the audience) but I normally won't include it in a slide. There's a difference for me verbally and putting it down "on paper".
I want people to pass around my slide decks. A slide deck full of vulgarity is probably not going to get passed around. However I probably cussed like a sailor during the same presentation.
The blog post by Hanselman is here: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ProfanityDoesntWork.aspx
Zach Holman slides are here: http://zachholman.com/talk/a-documentation-talk
And the HN discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3212694
The best technical content is dispassionate. Appeals to emotion obscure the underlying rational argument (assuming there is one).
That doesn't mean that talks shouldn't be exciting or interesting -- but those emotions shouldn't serve as the primary argument for whatever position is being presented. Yet, this is exactly what happens when you leverage a huge emotional trigger like swearing.
On the spectrum of human experience, does verbiage suitable for "someone's gonna die" scenarios belong down around "I hate #defines" (and oh yes I do)? If the most extreme verbiage gains acceptable use around the latter, what then can be used for the former to indicate the vast gulf between those scenarios?
If you're using obscenities to "communicate passion" for, say, how cool C++11's lambda syntax is, you're going to have a hard time expressing suitable emotions when, say, a nurse informs you your spouse's heart is being stopped on the operating table and they'll get back to you in a couple hours - and then don't for more than 5 without good reason.
Maybe that's the thing: those advocating swearing in technical presentations haven't learned what _real_ intense emotion is. As such, they can't comprehend why some people consider application of such verbiage inappropriate.
In my opinion the way that you talk and your method of speech tells me a lot about the person. If someone wants to sell me on an idea and they begin swearing that person will never sell ma anything. The individual will not work for me! And the company that the idiot is representing will not get my business!
By calling a person a writer, you have now put a label on that person that they are a professional, that they know what they are doing, what they are talking about. A writer targets a specific audience. By the language a writer uses, he will gain the adoration of some, and will drive others away. I guess it all depends on who you want following you. I personally would rather not listen to swearing. In fact, I will walk out of a talk or presentation if the person swears to "enhance" his vocabulary by swearing.
Kinda like steroids--make you look good, makes you feel strong--but it isn't real. And the majority of people would rather not here a pro on steroids.
This means that I don't cringe when I hear swear words, but they don't impress me either. My parents taught me that swear words are for people who have a poor vocabulary. And that advice has stood me in good stead. And doubly so now that I pastor and have to preach and teach twice a week. I am now quite versed in connecting to my audience. I have even been known to inspire an emotion or two. I don't have a fancy AV setup, so I do it all without the aid of slides or videos. If you have good content and you know what you're talking about, your presentation will be memorable. If you care about your presentation, your audience will care and connect with you as you convey that passion.
Of course, I'm just a mid-forties fuddy-duddy who isn't edgy and doesn't have a crafted persona, so what do I know ... other than I suspect that I've made more presentations than many of today's speakers, and likely to more people and likely evoked more emotions and connected more and all with zero swear words.
I don't know if I'm a good speaker or not, I'm really not a good judge of myself. But I do know, if I'm a crappy speaker, it wasn't because people were distracted by things that had nothing to do with my technical content.
If you choose to be offended when someone uses profanity, that's your problem, not mine. It's not my responsibility to protect the world from potentially offensive things.
>It's not my responsibility to protect the world from potentially offensive things. //
Depends on your basis for morality. I think you have some responsibility not to be gratuitously offensive [in speech]. Talking graphically about the death of the [late] beloved of a recently bereaved person might be a ready example.
I've never been offended by so-called profanity - sure the intended meaning has been offensive to me but not the particular words used. However, profanity appears to be mainly what is used by those too lazy to try and properly express themselves or too limited in their vocabulary to do the same.
A typical audience is, by continued presence and attentiveness, inclined to support what the speaker says. The speaker is not saying "fuck you" to the audience, he's saying it to a third person/thing and at minimum implicitly suggesting the audience support the notion. He's not trying to offend you, he's trying to get you to offend someone/thing else. You don't have to protect the world from the offense, but you don't have to sit there tacitly supporting it either.
This means that the use of obscenity is directed at someone or something, intending offense thereto. Yes, he's asking you to support the offending of a third person (or thing), mythical or not. He is acting as an offender (whether there is a being to experience being offended or not), and he's asking you to take the role of offender as well.
Do understand: there are times when initiating offense is appropriate. There are times when asking others to join you in initiating offense is appropriate.
Some people in the audience may not want to share in offending the subject of the offense the speaker is initiating. Thus, by using obscenity, the speaker may alienate some of the audience. Now, question is, was that necessary?
Without significant substantiating evidence, I am forced to object to this premise.
You are going to need to back that up before the rest of your argument can be coherent.
But lets start simple. What about: "I've got to go take a piss." (Urinate), "He looks rather pissed" (angry), and "Let's get pissed" (drunk).
"Euphemisms of bad words are still bad words. Words are not created filthy. We give them meaning. So whenever you say "effing" or "fricking"... you're missing the fucking point." - Jay Levanne
E.g. http://zachholman.com/posts/shit-work/
And yesterday a rant on usage of swearing words in talks is given in many places including [1] & [2] on hacker news.
Humor is great in a presentation when it's used appropriately (and when the jokes are actually funny). But in that video, it comes off as very contrived, like he's trying too hard to be funny.
The source is available here: https://github.com/holman/holman.github.com
Perhaps someday as a group we will get beyond taking offence over how someone unmaliciously manipulates their vocal chords and instead concentrate our outrage at more pressing problems.
But swears are like bolded words. Restrained use emphasizes a point, while overuse drowns the message.
Dropping "fuck" every few sentences isn't offensive, it's boring. It indicates your underlying message isn't powerful enough on it's own.
So, I tend to reserve my colorful language for those times when I've drawn blood and/or tears from myself.
I have noticed a trend; swearing has become linguistic filler for hipsters.
You may cultivate an "edgy" persona, but it's not endearing. It may be a wise idea to take Scott Hanselman's criticism and learn from it. He's one of the best tech presenters in the world.
He would rather be that much more powerful in communicating his ideas to a smaller group of people and alienating people like you. By you, I mean someone who thinks "what 19 year old wrote this?" or similar.
He outlined this in the article. He gains a deeper engagement with some people at the expense of losing others.
He isn't concerned about losing you, dear reader.
(ETA: Interesting, HN won't let me reply to a downvoted reply to my post.) Verbose defenders & detractors of the practice aside, methinks many who murmur support do so from social pressures, and in fact dislike the practice but won't or can't articulate their opposition.
That is a really interesting question.
I agreed completely with Zach's post, and I've agreed with all of @gks's comments in this thread. Zach's use of swearing increases my emotional connection to what he's saying. If Zach didn't swear, he would connect less with me.
But the plural of anecdote is not data. What proportion of people are like you, and find swearing in a talk trite and cheap? What proportion of people are comfortable with Zach's slides?
We should do science.
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/11/03/shit-work
So I'd say it did benefit.
"Shit work" is an evocative image that is more than just swearing.
Mr. Holman has a lot of growing up to do. Don't swear in a professional conversation, specially in front of an audience. It's unbecoming of yourself and an insult to the listener who took the time out of their day to listen.
Exactly, and neither did I, as a Github customer. As a matter of fact, I've probably used one or two of his arguments in the past and not thought twice about it because a) I'm experienced enough to know when and where to use profanity if I so desire, and most importantly, b) I'm experienced enough to know not to cause, enable or further fuel a situation where I cannot win no matter the logic employed.
This is where Holman lets the developer community down: justifying and promoting his unacceptable behavior in order to self-promote a fake persona. That alone implies a total disregard for his audience and alerts me to the fact that aside from colorful language, he isn't that bright.
Edit: To respond to both of you and not be repetitive, I would like to refer both of you to the comment that I have made here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3217649
Swearing works in private conversation for the same reason that other slang and spoken shortcuts work, and it works in casual written conversation for the same reason that abbreviations, shorthand, and inattention to capitalization, spelling, and punctuation work: there's no real expectation of quality. Sure it's lazy and shows a lack of caring, but if a friend is shooting me an email to ask if I'm up for Thai tonight, I don't expect her to proofread and capitalize before sending. That's an appropriate amount of effort for the situation.
If you're putting that much effort into a presentation to someone you hope will give you money, however, that's just plain rude.
(Some folks, and I suspect this is true for HN commenters at a much higher proportion than it is true for the general population, prefer to spend the time on all communication, regardless of formality or venue, to make it decent. I believe this is a good habit to cultivate, but I don't insist upon it in others).
In a time of crisis, some swearing is appropriate to convey urgency to the listener. At a nerd meetup? Hardly.
I think that a lot what you are describing is heavily dependent upon the culture of the participants. Certainly in my culture "total disregard for even the most basic of social forums." would be a gross exaggeration and the rest of your comment would likely be perceived as far more insulting than the casual non-aggressive use of 'profanity'.
If you have a worthwhile point to make in response to mine, then please do so. However I must ask you to refrain from posting unproductive comments like this.
I'm not a native speaker so my vocabulary is pretty limited, but I don't remember coming across a word that would help me express that feeling.
It adds nothing.
"This piece of software is as useful as wings on Shamu"
"This piece of software makes me want to skewer needles up my thumbs for a relaxing break."
etc. There is value in shock. The problem with profanity is that it it only shocks whoever is not used to reading it (and in public writing it's hard to tell who is and who is not).
Whales like to jump, surely Shamu would rather like to have wings, and the second is a great deal more distressing to me than just a silly little word could possibly be. I don't think either of these are an improvement upon the first at all.
Judging by this entire tizzy HN has worked itself into, I'd say profanity doesn't run the risk of running out of "shock potential" anytime soon.
I honestly believe this is an instance of generally rational people becoming offended for a reason they don't quite understand, and inventing a theory to explain the data.