Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time

This is so weird to me. You won't find blueprints (at least not the copies that will be handed around across teams and companies) marked up with "this is fucking magic" when an architect or structural engineer design something amazing. In a DM/email/SMS? Sure, that's the correct place to put that message.

The idea that removing vulgarity will increase ambiguity in this context is very strange. In terms of communication, the only use for vulgarity is to convey emotion. That's not relevant here. If we ban it, maybe people will explain why something is shit, instead of just saying it's shit. Forcing other words to take up the slack is a feature, not a bug.

I know about the fast inverse square root code. I could probably give a decent if somewhat vague overview of how it works from memory. I don't recall the WTF comment, and that certainly isn't why I heard about it.

This is a great example of what I'm saying. Commenting 0x5f3759df "what the fuck?" isn't useful. It tells me the author was confused or amazed or something. Imagine if instead they had commented, "Compute an initial guess by negating and halving the exponent. 0x5f3759df was found by experimenting and seems to give a good guess in the mantissa bits."

Oh no! Sounds like somebody just figured out that insults work both ways!

> Let me guess, you can count them on one hand, right?

If I needed two, would that help? Three? Four? [0] Would it? Really?

> Let’s be clear: I've been working in Spain for nearly 25 years. Cursing is common here.

Let's be extra clear then! That's not what's being discussed!!!

Are you deliberately missing the point somehow? Do you see parentheses and skip right on?

> waiting to be corrected by the wisdom of outside standards

And this is especially not what's being discussed. What's being discussed is if it's waiting to be corrected by the wisdom of inside standards. If people there think they're being unprofessional when using foul language in codebases or formal corporate communications, and if that even happens. An event of mere (albeit severe) disbelief. Although if I were to believe you, an event of "cultural colonialism". Because apparently having an assumption or a negative impression is somehow inherently oppressive (???), and like how do I even dare to think that way? Sensitivities, huh?

Except you keep not talking about that for whatever reason. You keep going off about how people curse all the time. Of course they do. That was never the question! Do you include foul language when sending out advisories or quotes or other formal documents, to clients or internally? Do you include foul language and rants in the work you deliver, be it in commit messages, tickets, ticket comments, release notes, checklists, or code comments? That's what I want you to tell me, with every single one of those amazing, one of a kind, definitely maximally representative of everyone and everywhere else in the country 25 years of experience.

Because supposedly, according to you, all of these will be chock full of cursing!

> the kind where people don't filter themselves for fear of offending delicate American sensibilities

The delicate American sensibilities of a Central-Eastern European. Of not including foul language in code comments and such. Are you actually taking a piss? This is a fever dream, it has to be. You're acting as if I could drive for a few days and enter a foreign planet. You guys are not nearly that special and different, I'm sorry. Maybe except for turrón, no idea how to enjoy that with or without having my dentist on speed dial, I'll admit to that much.

[0] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/oh-you-love-x-name-every-y

This is not about informal conduct. If they cuss among themselves or towards other colleagues who they are close to, that's completely of no interest to me, and as you say, is just plain normal. I do it with my closer peers as well all the time. This is about the work delivered and the formal communications. And I can understand if this informal speech seeps into work stuff at smaller scales, but that doesn't mean it's right. As you say, it's about everyone being on the same page and cutting themselves slack - but that does mean they are cutting slack, and so that there's a shared understanding of it not being proper, just being okay. According to the GP above though, this is not how it goes in Spain specifically, and it's an alternate reality there where commit histories and code comments will be full of cheap innuendo and cursing, and that that is somehow still completely professional there supposedly.

Well I'll be damned and be the ""cultural colonialist"" then, but I just do not buy that for one second. These standards were not invented yesterday, are not even specific to our industry, and are not nearly geo-localized enough for that to happen.

But in this context, the purportedly irrational belief is that some phrases are offensive. If you accept that there are people who would, rationally or not, be offended by some phrases, then I don't understand why you would even make the claim that it's absurd to believe that some people would be offended by some phrases.

Humans are irrational. This shouldn't be news to anyone who is a human. I think it is reasonable to say that literally every single non-infant human in existence has done at least one irrational thing in their lifetimes, including you and me. Certainly there are humans who do more or fewer irrational things than others, but that doesn't matter all that much.

> I think your point might be that, because there are people with irrational beliefs out there we must appease them?

Sometimes, yes. Often, I'd say. People's feelings actually do matter. Sometimes the level of irrationality can be high enough that one might not care too much about hurting someone else's feelings in calling our or ignoring that irrationality. But very very often, we humans take into account others' irrationality when dealing with them, in order to make interactions more pleasant for both parties.

(Anyway, I don't disagree with the sidetracked point: that it's not absurd for a sequence of phones or characters might cause offense. It seems disingenuous to deny the reality of "bad words". I do think that this side discussion on irrationality and how to deal with it is potentially interesting, though.)

Almost everything that gets a laugh in a comedy show isn’t funny because it’s clever. What happens is the comedian says something “obvious”. They say something that you were kinda already thinking - even if you weren’t consciously aware of it. We laugh because we’re acknowledged and feel seen for what we were already thinking, and when lots of people laugh it feels good because we feel connected to the group. Our laughter is a release of tension connected to feeling part of the group.

If you don’t believe me, do the experiment for yourself. Watch a comedy show. When people laugh, ask yourself why they laughed then.

My favorite example is this clip of Billy Connolly from back when he would play the banjo on stage. Just as he goes to play the first note, the string on his banjo snaps. There’s this awkward pause, and tension in the audience. Then he looks up at the crowd and says “Well that’s just gone and F-ed it, hasn’t it?” And everyone laughs. My take is this: We were all holding tension. He said the obvious thing. We laugh because suddenly everyone realises we aren’t alone in our tension - suddenly we’re all (including the comedian) in this experience together.

“Offensive” humour is even more subversive than people think because it makes it common knowledge that we were all thinking some thought. It’s an opportunity to collectively acknowledge of our humanity. And that’s something some people (perversely) want us to deny.

If I were to point to some misbehaving members of some group today and say they were "naughty", this would not induce the same experience as it would have in Shakespeare's time, where that word meant "worthless". One can object to the latter and not the former, precisely because which word pulls the metaphorical lever on which mental experience, changes between those situations.

The question "is moderating such language is a good idea or not?" is a separate one to this.

Citing that as a counterexample is weak.