
Profanity works - pbnaidu
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1214-profanity-works
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jamesbritt
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
_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.

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johnyzee
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.

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thomasswift
except for the one where he has the swearing problem towards the kid. and the
one where elaine and george utter swears under their breath towards jerry. I
get your point, but those are great episodes too.

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johnyzee
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
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.

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swombat
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.

~~~
electromagnetic
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
"... 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.

~~~
pchristensen
Exactly - 99% of what DHH and 37s says is profanity-free, but in the few weeks
since I watched the Startup School talk, the phrase that keeps ringing in my
head is "Zappos sells _f------ shoes_!"

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maxklein
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.

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

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blurry
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?

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

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dhotson
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. :)

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username2
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?

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

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cmars232
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
Correction: Queen's English, unless Charles, heaven forbid, has just taken the
throne...

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

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rmalik
awesome! or better yet, fuck yeah!

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rw
No shit.

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newt0311
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
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>

~~~
newt0311
Tragedy of the commons is a prisoner's dilemma type of situation but is indeed
a better analogy here.

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time_management
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.

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blogimus
WTF?

