I've noticed - and I may be wrong - that all the folk in the UK are unfazed by the swearing and have reacted quite positively either in person or on Twitter.
The Americans, by contrast, seem a lot more upset about the swearing. I wonder why that is?
Either way, I do wonder if some sections of the tech community are to... corporate in their approach to language. Look at the fuss when Linus went on a rant about Nvidia. That's how people speak in real life when they are angry or passionate. We shouldn't lose that simply because of a perceived lack of professionalism.
The swearing, in my tumblr's case, is designed to be repetitious to the point of banality. It is, if you like, an exercise in over-reaction.
This is exactly how I interpreted it's meaning. So, another UK data point...
And yeah, we Brits really couldn't give much less of a fuck :)
As a cauliflower faced, bucktoothed, tea swilling brit I didn't have any issue with it at all. My concern is the potential ramifications of a 'colourful' post. Given the job market and the general sensitivity in the work place it can cause real and genuine problems.
When I recruit I look for talented and colourful people (geeks of old?) but when the shoe is on the other foot I do try and be much more conservative then I otherwise would be.
It's a sad fact and one that has proven true more than once
[Ninja Edit] Pseudonyms are useful if you need a good rant. Take Inspector Gadget - even if he was outed by some spineless journo
It ends up being a good measure of a social situation. As soon as I decide I'm around people that might be interesting, I will slowly decrease the child-friendliness of my language. The subtle reactions to the first use of "fuck" tells you a lot about how open-minded people are likely to be.
I can understand being careful in your use of language in corporate environments, simply because -- at least here -- offending the wrong people with colorful expression can easily compromise your employment or promotion opportunities. Granted, I'd say that's not a great environment to work in, but some people don't have quite the flexibility in what they can do or where they can do it in terms of taking or leaving job opportunities.
I know it sounds trite, but it's mostly about the children.
I couldn't care less about people dropping F bombs around me (although it does taint my opinion of them if it's done for no particular reason), but the less kids hear the word, the more they realize that it is not to be used lightly.
It's been fairly effective in the US, from what I can tell.
See: "begging the question".
From http://begthequestion.info/ :
"Begging the question" is a form of logical fallacy in which a statement or claim is assumed to be true without evidence other than the statement or claim itself. When one begs the question, the initial assumption of a statement is treated as already proven without any logic to show why the statement is true in the first place.
laureny is claiming that it's "about the children", but the implicit assumption there is that there's something wrong with cursing in the first place. laureny assumes "it is not to be used lightly" and that children need to understand this - but that's exactly the item under discussion.
There is when it's used in regular speech for no reason, like using "like" every other sentence instead of just pausing.
Seems something of a straw man. It's not like we swear in front of our children over here in the UK :) I can count the number of times I heard my parents use profanity, before I turned 18, on one hand. And the lecture I got for using the word 'pissed' in front of my mother, aged 14, still rings with me!
However, during my travels in the US I found people very adverse to profanity even without any children in evidence. And it's not like I am particularly foul mouthed!
Of all the countries I've travelled in, the US is where I'd make a point of not swearing ever. Which is sad; just in general I often feel I have to self-censor lots of my personality/language in the US.
> the less kids hear the word, the more they realize that it is not to be used lightly
I don't agree. The less lightly kids think swear words are to be taken, the more they will use them to prop up their own attempts to be taken seriously by their peers and the adults around them.
Once a kid hears someone who swears every other word, they realize that overusing swear words dilutes their impact until they become effectively meaningless. They come to the natural conclusion that, in order to maximize effect, swear words should be kept in reserve for truly exceptional circumstances.
And really the "right" answer depends on the viewpoint of the observer (i.e. whether you approve of profanity or not).
I hardly ever swear anymore. It's not so much that I perceive it to be rude, but that it seems to show up more often as a placeholder than anything else. To the point where any power in the word is completely gutted and it comes off as lack of confidence in communication skills. Similar to people saying 'like' or 'um' all the time.
Now how Linus/Zed Shaw use it, and as well how it's used in a site like this, all I have to say is, awesome.
It really takes a skilled person to give the tired-old swearwords some zip. The insane sorority letter that went viral a month ago was remarkable not only because of sheer quantity, but also the quality of the swearing (for example, the verb "cuntpunt.")
This is the internet. There are Americans here. In fact, most of the sites with these annoying mobile experiences are American companies. Let's assume for a moment that the generalization is accurate... Consider: Successful persuasive writing must be written with a particular audience in mind.
There's a prudish streak in the US that I really believe comes from the fact that the country was originally settled by people too religious and too concerned with overtly moral social interaction to be tolerated in 17th century England.
That may seem like too easy an explanation but I really do think there is some truth to it. Despite the excesses in American culture, that sort of casual swearing still gets backlash when it goes beyond people who are familiar with each other.
I've mentioned it here before, but Your Mother's Tongue: Book of European Invective is a great and extremely funny book on the subject.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbZhpf3sQxQ
George Carlin, inspired by Lenny Bruce
But more to your argument, Roger Williams was a Puritan, but anything but a prude. He figured that going to Hell was punishment enough to justify practical acceptance of non-believers in this world.
Our National myths don't necessarily conform with the facts, amigo.
Which to Brits is ridiculous as to them "rocks" are rather larger bits of stone that are pretty hard to pick up, let alone throw.
I'm told. Not being a native speaker of either British or American English I wouldn't know if this is true or not, but I thought the story was amusing enough to share.
After all, when it's time for a proper riot no one really cares about the subtext of the name of the thing they're chucking. "Hey, share some of those stones with me, I bet I can smash that cop's windshield." "They're rocks, Jake - we're anarchists, not perverts."
Don't have a problem with cursing used in moderation when used appropriately, but like any ingredient in a recipe, too much is a bad thing.
The English aren't exactly swinging naked from the trees now are they? Every freaking day in France some man or woman is letting it ALL hang out, having a public chat with poor little children around no less, and nobody gives a shit!
Hah, hah, Anglophones are prudish in general, although we probably take the cake in the States.
This has probably been posted before but Stephen Fry's opinion on swearing is pretty valid in my opinion.
----
Swearing is a really important part of one's life. It would be impossible to imagine going through life without swearing and without enjoying swearing... There used to be mad, silly, prissy people who used to say swearing was a sign of a poor vocabulary -such utter nonsense. The people I know who swear the most tend to have the widest vocabularies and the kind of person who says swearing is a sign of a poor vocabulary usually have a pretty poor vocabulary themselves... The sort of twee person who thinks swearing is in any way a sign of a lack of education or a lack of verbal interest or -is just a fucking lunatic... I haven't met anybody who's truly shocked at swearing, really, they're only shocked on behalf of other people. Well, you know, that's preposterous... or they say 'it's not necessary'. As if that should stop one doing it! It's not necessary to have coloured socks, it's not necessary for this cushion to be here, but is anyone going to write in and say 'I was shocked to see that cushion there, it really wasn't necessary'? No, things not being necessary is what makes life interesting -the little extras in life.
Stephen Fry on the joys of swearing. Stephen Fry: Guilty, BBC4, September 8th 2007
----
A pirate captain by the name of Bartholemew Roberts captured a British official by the name of Plunkett who had double crossed a company of pirates and shot them down under a banner of truce - few things could enrage a pirate more! Old Roberts was incensed and, upon finally capturing Plunkett, took to cursing him in the most foul and heinous of language - of which a pirate dialect was primarily composed. Seeing himself a dead man and with no other hope left to him, Plunkett stuck out his chest and being a proud and experienced Irishman, gave back a measure and then some more in such illbegotten slights of character on Old Roberts name that the crew hung limp and incapacitated with laughter. The whole exchange inspired such a regard for Plunkett's tongue that dispite his crimes against pirates, the whole company agreed to send him on his way no harm done.
My impression has always been that England is a very well-mannered country, even in the ghettos (of course they swear, but it just seems that a sense of etiquette permeates the country)
Some cultures apply morals in their actual life choices, where other cultures apply them in their pretend politeness. Some of them seem to believe that being nice equates acting nice. But acting is deceit and manipulating, hence by definition not actually nice behavior.
But they do mean well, its just that they focus more on the symbolism of "good" behavior, than the reality of it. And thats generally the pattern: cultures that focus strongly on symbolism will also strongly apply morality symbolically. For example: americans worship their flag, but hate their government.
I agree with the content though.
Consider the term "f-bomb". The reason the term exists is because it's evocative: a bomb produces a "sudden and violent release of energy", typically intended to destroy a target or to draw attention, often producing a sentiment of "shock and awe". The word "fuck" can intensify a destructive sentiment, or draw attention and produce shock. It carries some amount of emotional payload (possibly more in the US, but some wherever it's spoken); you would not be using the word otherwise.
The effect changes when you lob f-grenades indiscriminately. The underlying sentiment you're trying to draw attention to can get lost in the chaos -- being "repetitious to the point of banality" makes the mobile app criticism into an indistinct mass of lexical white noise (see the alt text on http://xkcd.com/1210/ ). I found your tumblr obnoxious, not so much due to lacking professionalism or corporate-ness, but because the commentary is flat, tiresome, and flavorless. You've gone way beyond spicing it up with f-pepper, and all the way to burying it under f-spam. With some nuance and cleverness, you could turn it into hilarious overreaction rather than banal overreaction.
Am I wrong? Is it more common in America?
Also to me it always seemed less descriptive and more an attempt to link the concept of bombs (which we can probably all agree are bad) with the word. Maybe it's a cultural thing.
My read is that "f-bomb" (and other -bomb terms) can be merely a case of being uncomfortable with swearing, but it is also used by people of various demographics to describe the conversational effects. I hope my use of terms like "f-grenade", "f-pepper" (which came from the previous article), and "f-spam" are likewise evocative.
I'm English. I'm unfazed by it. But it's not a good example of lots of swearing. It's just lots of "fucks" and "fucking" scattered through the text. There doesn't appear to be much rhythm or flow to it.
It's not funny. It's not effective at conveying anger. It's just poor writing. That's fine, not everyone is a great writer, but don't try to defend shitty writing with some kind of "Anyone English gets it and it's only you uptight Yanks who don't like it".
You're no Malcom fucking Tucker.
I agree. He's created a very good and useful showcase of a specific frustration that many of us would prefer to never implement or deal with. For an exercise in venting, this style makes a lot of sense.
> His word choices are not hate speech or discriminatory so the fact that they may offend your sensibilities has precisely zero relevance to anything.
The language chosen to express his feelings means that I can't reference this site to anyone I work with in the enterprise world. For giving people materials in fighting against implementing these things, it collects a lot of great examples of why this is frustrating. Unfortunately, sharing it with the people who make these kinds of decisions has "career-limiting move" written all over it.
Maybe it will be (is?) licensed in a way that allows for business-friendly adaptation.
I'm a brit living in the US so add that as a datapoint too!
It doesn't even register on my offensive scale... did we have this same hand-wringing over zed shaw's programming motherfucker website? I don't recall it if we did. http://programming-motherfucker.com/become.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2355427
On the contrary, most people really motherfucking joined in.
Does it have to? In my experience, taking into consideration how the message receiver might be offended is more important. I'm not personally offended by the language of the tumblr, but I still wouldn't bring it into a business setting because of how others may feel.
> did we have this same hand-wringing over zed shaw's programming motherfucker website?
To me, the target audience of this site is far different. Some of the same rules apply, but Zed Shaw's site is unlikely to be the basis of an argument for or against any sort of business-level decision. With that being said, I probably wouldn't point an aspiring programmer (or anyone) toward Zed's site unless I knew they were very casual with profanity.
If not, please take this as permission to copy those images and make your own non-sweary version.
Nice work in collecting all of these. They make for a great showcase.
According to Paul Fussell's Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, aversion to profanity is a middle class thing. The upper class[1] do not use euphemisms for profanity or obscenity. Fussell wrote that Jilly Cooper reported "I once overheard my son regaling his friends: 'Mummy says pardon is a much worse word than fuck.'"
I doubt that many members of the upper class (see Fussell's book for a definition of upper class, it is roughly the tastes of "old money" but not dependent upon actual wealth) read Hacker News. It is likely that those who do not object to obscenities such as the word "fuck" are more socially liberal freethinkers who dislike formality. Those who do object are likely to be members of the middle class who believe (foolishly) that in censoring profanities and vulgarities, they are emulating the upper class. The phenomenon of "professionalism" is also a product of the middle class — to the upper class, selling things for a living is distasteful and déclassé. "Professional" language is usually very timid and full of circumlocutions as the primary goal is to not say anything that anyone may find offensive.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Class-Through-American-Status-System/d...
It's a good book, and I'd recommend it if you have an interest in this area.
What pisses me off however is the judgmental bullshit excuses Americans use for their intolerance, like swearing being "unprofessional" or "childish". Utter nonsense.
Please stop pretending your oversensitivity to "bad words", which in my experience is unique on the planet, has some kind of logical reason, and stop lecturing people about it.
Especially on HN, a place one assumes is mostly visited by well-educated worldly people, such lecturing seems completely misplaced.
If you have an issue with swearing, keep it to yourself. Even grammar nazis are more constructive and useful.
As far as goals go, I'll use whatever language I think will get the point across that I'm trying to make. Sometimes it's nice that there are words that I can reserve as "I'm really crossing a social line here to demonstrate irritation."
That said, I generally avoid making people uncomfortable or offending them for no reason. For instance, I don't think there's anything inherently unethical about cussing around someone that thinks cussing is immoral, but I'll generally avoid it if there's not really some strategic use to the language. It saves them a little discomfort (however unjustified someone might think the discomfort is) and it can save me a little big of grief if they're really adamant about it.
I follow the same road with how grammatically correct I try to be, or how politically correct I try to be. It's ethically N/A to me, so it's more useful strategically. I do the same thing with clothing/fashion, pictures I post on social media, etc. There's no use for me to self-righteously defending myself if I do something I don't really care about when know will be poorly received. Could just be a lazy path-of-least-resistance thing, though.
I will say, that if it's within my design and goal (and this website seems squarely within the authors intent), I'm not going to lose any sleep over someone finding my website and being offended by my language. I might do my best to be considerate in public, or where it makes sense for me, but if we're hanging out somewhere semi-private or you're on my website and act pissy about the presentation or language, well, no one made you read it, and I'll just as happily ignore you.
Oh yeah. Also. I hate app requests. Make a slick mobile website and leave me alone pls tx.
Just because you choose not to do something does not mean that people who do that thing are lower than you.
Also, replying to GP, I'm pretty sure swearing is less "low-class" and more "not middle-class".
Calls to download a fucking app when you're in the middle of doing something else, and when the app itself is entirely unnecessary and doesn't provide any more value, are incredibly annoying and lead to strong language.
If you were in a hurry and tried to heat up something in a microwave, and the device insisted you must absolutely set up the time first, you'd swear and probably kick the thing. So why not here?
The app strategists deserve this and much more.
Of course the point of the article is probably more interesting so I agree with you on that point.