Profanity works

http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1214-profanity-works

by pbnaidu • 18 years ago

24 53 18 years ago

37signals.com

blogimus• 18 years ago

WTF?

rmalik• 18 years ago

awesome! or better yet, fuck yeah!

swombat3• 18 years ago

Totally agree. I've never understood people who seem afraid to use words.

As a writer, I consider the whole english language fair game. Obviously, you shouldn't swear for no reason, but as David points out, swear words can be effectively used for emphasis and to add some extra passion.

aaronblohowiak6• 18 years ago

I respectfully disagree. To put it in another's words, "my momma raised me right."

qqq3• 18 years ago

Do you disagree because of a prejudice, or do you have well thought out reasons? If you have reasons, could you post them?

iamdave• 18 years ago

Did she, pray tell for this discourse ever tell you why saying such words offended people, or were you raised like I was?

Namely: This this this and this are wrong. Why? Because I said they're wrong.

electromagnetic• 18 years ago

I'd second you on that. While working as a reviewer I found that swearing when talking to my boss made him understand my point better.

Similarly I've found that when talking to people, sometimes dropping a 'fuck' in as punctuation scores gold. I worked as an electrician, and when I add the 'F' in there, people recognise it isn't my opinion I'm expressing when it comes to doing something, it's a simple fact.

Again, something I've seen on the construction site. Workers regularly swear, but when working swear words begin to illustrate numerous things. How good/bad something is, how urgent something is, etc. When someone says grab a new fucking bolt, I know they don't need one now, I know they're holding something likely very heavy. When someone uses a swear word, I don't walk, I don't run, I sprint cause I know someone's going to end up hurt.

So as a writer, and blue/white-collar worker I'd say swearing is a fundamental type of punctuation. It makes a point that an exclamation point wouldn't. It's wrongly seen as vulgar to swear, when originally it was only seen as vulgar to swear AT SOMEONE, but victorian times supposedly perverted this. However, I'd consider it returning more to the original sensibilities, and that if the wireless operator on the Titanic had put a fuck in there, the other ships might not have thought they were partying when the ship was sinking.

DanielBMarkham• 18 years ago

"... if the wireless operator on the Titanic had put a fuck in there..."

How would that work?

C-Fucking-Q-Fucking-D, Assholes!

Profanity is just words, but like all words, they have a tendency to piss people off. So I use "heck", "durn", "shucky-bob" and any other ridiculously non-profane words I can come up with. Then when I add a "hell', "damn", "fuck' or the like, it stands out.

When I was in my twenties and in the service, every other word was profane. When you use something all the time, it just doesn't work any more. Like a good spice, the trick is the moderate and appropriate application at the right time.

I love profanity. It's even more fun now that I squelch it up and down to suit the occasion. It's almost like playing a musical instrument. Now that I rarely use it any more, it's all the more enjoyable.

indiejade• 18 years ago

Hmm. I'm not generally a fan of profanity-spewing in speech. However, I would agree w/David in that it can be an effective tool, but would add the disclaimer of occasionally; it's effective if it's used rarely enough to garner an actual response from the intended audience. As per his example of speaking at conferences. Most of the time, however, a person is known as either someone who constantly spews profanities or someone who doesn't. People who are the latter lose their shock factor quickly.

Writing, on the other hand, rarely calls for it . . . except in contexts like fictional writing where it can be used to paint a character, usually someone with a low IQ.

And it's not very effective in non-fiction writing / blogging, but for the rare instances it's meant to be funny. If I'm writing some fuming diatribe, typing just to "let off steam," or whatever, I've found that it is much more effective (and satisfying) to craft perfectly-reasoned logical sentences about the reason(s) I'm pissed off without the repeated use of four-letter words.

edits: indie also has a difficult time crafting logical or gramatickally-correct sentences when tired ;)

mattmaroon3• 18 years ago

I understand why a lot of people don't. Swearing is often a crutch for the uncreative, and a lot of people realize that. To use it effectively takes talent, and to use it ineffectively can be pretty damaging, so most people are probably better off just leaving it alone. Someone like Bill Cosby can be thought of as a far better comedian than he really is simply for not using it.

I have a feeling that if I were a better programmer I could come up with a great analogy here, but alas, I'm a hack.

jamesbritt2• 18 years ago

Most often it strikes me as shallow. Like most comedians who swear, it typically masks a lack of substance.

Some people make effective use of swearing, but most use it as a crutch, or in a noticeably calculated way, and even if it makes me remember something I doubt that the memory is going to be favorable.

nickb• 18 years ago

Like most comedians who swear...

Well, and then there's guys like Carlin and Hicks and Pryor and Rock who swear a lot and yet are the funniest people on planet.

jamesbritt2• 18 years ago

Absolutely. But I'm skeptical that most comedians are like Carlin and Hicks and Pryor and Rock.

For every Carlin who could craft the use of "fuck", there are three who think "motherfucker" is a hot-wire to the funny bone.

johnyzee2• 18 years ago

I see your Carlin and raise you Jerry Seinfeld.

In ten years of making probably the funniest TV ever I think he said 'hell' a couple of times and that's about it.

ibsulon• 18 years ago

"Will Smith don't gotta cuss in his raps to sell records Well I do, so fuck him and fuck you too" -- Marshall Mathers

thomasswift2• 18 years ago

I always remember will smith talking about how he doesn't swear in his albums, doesn't he swear a shitload in Bad Boys?

staunch• 18 years ago

"I was so mad I called Richard Pryor's house up and said yo Richard, Bill Cosby just called me up and told me I'm too dirty and Richard said the next time motherfucker calls tell him I said Suck My Dick, 'cause I don't give a fuck, Whatever the fuck make the people laugh say that shit. He said do the people laugh when you say what you say? I said Yes, He said, Do you get paid, I said Yes, He said well tell Bill I said have a Coke and a Smile and shut the fuck up. Jello pudding eating motherfucker."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7nNLotYdOE

rw• 18 years ago

No shit.

dhotson• 18 years ago

I swear.. a lot.

But as the article suggests, It's only when I'm really passionate about something or if I want to make something really clear.

I only use it for good, not evil. :)

Prrometheus• 18 years ago

>Of all the presentations I’ve given, I’ve generally had the most positive feedback from the ones that carried enough passion to warrant profanity and it’s been very effective in making people remember key ideas (“they sell fucking shoes”).

I can't imagine how "fucking shoes" would be useful.

redorb• 18 years ago

zappos, they just sell fucking shoes, they win because of their custormer service.

pchristensen3• 18 years ago

I remember that phrase 100x more than anything from Startup School. It's the clearest explanation I've heard of how you can succeed by creating a great experience, not just a great product.

sjh• 18 years ago

The one magical word: http://www.twoguys.org/~gregh/fword.wav. Warning: NSFW, unless perhaps you're working at 37signals.

newt03112• 18 years ago

Small point. There is a prisoner's dilemma here. As profanity is used more and more often, it becomes less jarring (consider bloody, bloomin, etc.. as examples of prior swear words). Thus, they their very use, these words become less useful. However, any individual author has no incentive to stop using these words.

Eventually, we will probably have new curse words for english.

paulgb• 18 years ago

Interesting point, but I think the tragedy of the commons is a more fitting analogy than the prisoner's dilemma.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

newt03112• 18 years ago

Tragedy of the commons is a prisoner's dilemma type of situation but is indeed a better analogy here.

cmars232• 18 years ago

I think if you're going to swear, you should do it in British. The King's English offers a greater spectrum of colorful expressions.

DLWormwood• 18 years ago

Correction: Queen's English, unless Charles, heaven forbid, has just taken the throne...

known• 18 years ago

And http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window also works!

maxklein• 18 years ago

Using profanity is the ultimate form of cultural myopia. Words suitable for use in America are not suitable for use in most other parts of the english speaking world. And if your product or service is aimed at a global audience, then you have to express your cleverness through some other class of words.

johnyzee2• 18 years ago

Why should we invoke imagery of feces or corpulation to make a point?

The relief people feel today by swearing is because it defies political correctness and hypocritical holiness which are issues most people share right now in our culture. If there was no perceived repression associated with particular words they wouldn't have any effect and invoking them in unrelated discussion wouldn't make any sense.

In other words, swearing is a contemporary cultural statement akin to "stick it to The Man". I think it is fair to say that it is a pretty cheap oratory trick, since it is just an appeal to a common cause rather than an argument or viewpoint that can stand on its own merit.

That's not to say it is not funny or effectfull, it's just orthogonal to substance. It is the web 2.0 glossy UI of modern language.

khafra• 18 years ago

1) "imagery of...corpulation[sic]" (more properly "corpulence") would be something like the average American, shirtless. I think you were looking for "imagery of copulation."

2) Swearing is certainly an oratory or rhetorical technique. Its cheapness or sophistication depends on how it's used. I'm not pointing to this as the zenith of eloquent profanity, but phrases like "Jesus H. tap-dancing Christ," from the movie Blues Brothers, have had as much lasting impact on colloquial speech as Virgil or Homer did, in their day.

projectileboy• 18 years ago

Fuggidy fuggidy fuggidy fuggidy fuggidy fug fug fug. Are you listening to me yet?

time_management3• 18 years ago

Profanity is the language of dysphemism, or the use of offensive metaphors to express disgust and negativity, e.g. "I got fucked [raped] on that exam" or "I had a shitty day". These turns of phrase are banal to those who've heard them hundreds of times, but are utterly offensive and shocking to most people on the first introduction.

The social danger of dysphemism, of course, is that some people will react not with disgust toward the target (the exam) but rather toward the person using such language. This leads to an inherent riskiness and edginess to so-called "profanity". However, a lot of people like risky behaviors, so this results in a proliferation of ironic or even positive uses, e.g. "my car is the shit" or "life is so fucking beautiful", that are often used to build camaraderie.

username2• 18 years ago

Are there any cussers that are not offended by anything? What offends someone who swears? Does telling you to not use profanities offend you? Are you obscene because you are offended?

blurry• 18 years ago

Hey, whatever happened to DNFTT?

"Profanity Works" is a perfect example of trolling (controversial and irrelevant message in an online community, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response or disrupting normal on-topic discussion).

Why are we biting? Is the obvious trollness obscured by the fact that it comes from 37Signals?

Profanity works

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