
Swearing at work - a guide - tommorris
http://nic.ferrier.me.uk/blog/2013_04/swearing-at-work
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Swizec
Surely this is the right time to quote mr. Stephen Fry.

"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."

~~~
randallsquared
> people who used to say swearing was a sign of a poor vocabulary -such utter
> nonsense.

Well, it's plausible. There are only a few common swear words, so if a person
uses those many more times than other people, and if they aren't actually
talking a lot more, they must be using fewer other words, potentially
replacing hundreds of descriptive adjectives and adverbs with the same five or
seven words.

I suppose Stephen Fry hasn't noticed, but many people who use several swear
words in every sentence actually don't seem to have a large working
vocabulary, and even if they technically know a more precise word for what
they mean, they have to think a bit to find it, as though non-swearing was a
peculiar dialect.

Using swear words for emphasis doesn't seem correlated in this way, to me.

~~~
Avshalom
>I suppose Stephen Fry hasn't noticed, but many people who use several swear
words in every sentence actually don't seem to have a large working
vocabulary.

What Fry noticed is that many people use several swear words in every sentence
period full stop <blink>.</blink> He's claiming it's orthogonal to working
vocabulary size.

~~~
randallsquared
I addressed that in the previous sentence: if it's orthogonal to working
vocabulary size, then it must be positively correlated with verbosity. That
could be true, but I can't tell from personal experience.

~~~
Avshalom
Only if vocabulary size already has some specific correlation with verbosity
but it's easy to use many words or very few words regardless of vocab size.

Something can be "truly fucking staggeringly-ass colossal" or it can be
"fucking tall". Something can just as easily be "fucking colossal" or "god
damn motherfucking-ass tall".

Yeah if you're the sort that "truly staggeringly colossal" comes naturally to
you'd see a difference in emphasis, but they're equivalent to Joe Shitpack.

~~~
Swizec
Ah, but some things are "amazing" while other things are "amazeballs".

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gadders
An excellent guide, that I would tend to agree with. I would also like to
offer up this quote from General Patton:

"When I want my men to remember something important, to really make it stick,
I give it to them double dirty. It may not sound nice to some bunch of little
old ladies at an afternoon tea party, but it helps my soldiers to remember.
You can't run an army without profanity; and it has to be eloquent profanity.
An army without profanity couldn't fight it's way out of a piss-soaked paper
bag."

~~~
cmdkeen
Intriguingly the advice given to British officers is not to swear at those
under your command.

That is what non commissioned officers are for. And they are much better at
it.

~~~
D9u
In the early 1980's, while serving in the US Army, we sang some rather
explicit cadence calls, and this practice was curtailed by the increasing
presence of females in the ranks.

    
    
      Stomp with the left and drag your right!"
      SKULL FUCKIN!
      SKULL FUCKIN!
      If you like the pussy tight!
      ...
    

Our NCO's were masters of creative profanity. But that's an infantry unit, not
an office.

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corin_
For some people swearing is natural and cultural. For me it's just part of my
vernacular, and to varying levels that's true of all my colleagues and most of
my friends. I don't stop to plan when swearing would best fit or use it
tactically, it just comes out in sentences. When I'm hungry there's a good
chance I'm actually "fucking starving", and if I'm referencing someone who can
be a bit annoying there's a good chance he's "a bit of a cunt".

However I do have an automatic filter to tone down or remove swearing based on
who I'm talking to. Around a new person, especially work-related, I'll cut it
out completely until I have the feeling they're comfortable with it. In
particular around clients, there are some who I know well enough to swear at
my normal levels around, others I know well but still keep swearing away. I
guess sometimes I think about this stuff but for the most part it's just my
subconscious knowing when not to swear. Interestingly I very rarely swear when
talking to my parents, despite the fact that my mum reels through "fuck bugger
damn shit" when something goes wrong (so not regularly but maybe once every
few days) and my dad swears... a lot.

When someone swears a lot it just removes the strength of that swearing. When
I call someone a cunt or someone calls me a cunt we judge their meaning not on
the word but the tone of voice, most of the time it's not at all offensive -
but obviously I wouldn't just hop onto HN and type "you're a cunt" to somebody
as contextually it's completely different.

~~~
StavrosK
Ugh, I hate people using the word "cunt" willy-nilly. It's the one word we
have left that will still make people flinch and has any force left in it, but
many people using it for ordinary situations are making sure that doesn't stay
that way.

I like a language to have a swearword that gives people an emotional response.
Something that you can use and people can say "oh shit, the other guy is
fucked now". The nuclear bomb of swearwords.

The only word that approaches that that's left in English is "cunt", but
that's also quickly losing its power. The word "nigger" is also supremely
powerful (I bet you flinched when you read it, and I'm dreading the
consequences this comment will have while I'm writing it), but it's completely
useless for universal swearing due to its racial implications, and also
completely useless in general due to the fact that racism is fucking retarded
and doesn't even make any sense.

So, please don't overuse "cunt".

Excuse my French.

~~~
Nursie
Are you American?

'cunt' has largely lost its power here in the UK. You still wouldn't say it in
front of your mother, but even my very middle class mother drops the odd
F-bomb now and again. 'nigger' is deeply unpleasant but I don't flinch when
reading it on the internet because I spent time on a few sites (in the old
days...) where people thought it was clever to say as often as possible.

I was at a gig the other week that ended with the (dire, dreadful, untalented)
band singing "Cunt, cunt, cunt, pussy cunt!" and looking just _so_ pleased
with themselves, like they'd just done something so revolutionary and
intellectual. Maybe 40 years ago guys...

I think the only punch that's left is making compound words. And even then
'pigfucker' is sort of funny.

~~~
StavrosK
> Are you American?

Nope, Greek. I know "cunt" has lost its power in the UK (hell, Charlie Brooker
says it five times per show), but I think americans still flinch a bit.

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DanBC
I'm British. I did a stint on a factory floor. Oh My! The language!

The article is correct. Never aim words at people. Be sensitive to those
around you, some of them will be deeply upset by bad language. And be
creative. English is a glorious language and the range of swearing isn't
limited to a few F-Bombs.

~~~
singingfish
I've been spending a bit of time on a building site recently. The brickies. Oh
fuck... it seems one of their job functions is to lower the tone as far as it
will go.

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thisone
I've got a boss, when he's talking something up, every other word out of his
mouth is "fuck".

It's not abusive, but it isn't useful. Extolling the virtues of a product by
saying "it's fucking awesome" doesn't tell me anything about that product or
why it's so fucking awesome or why I should be so excited about it.

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andyhmltn
Luckily I work in a situation where swearing is completely acceptable.

>Almost everyone in Britain will blanch at "Cunt".

Really? Britain is one of the very few places I've found that _doesn't_ seem
to flinch at the word. It's almost common place.

~~~
daleharvey
You can get away with 'Cunt' in the UK but its something you would only call a
close friend, not a new acquaintance (whereas calling someone a fucker with a
grin is almost always fine)

~~~
andyhmltn
Oh yes, I wouldn't dream of doing that haha. I just mean that it seems cunt is
more 'acceptable' in the UK. In the US I've seen people REALLY offended by
someone even saying it while it's not in reference to them.

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smoyer
I haven't sworn prolifically in almost 30 years ... right around the time I
decided I should attempt to use the most obscure words in the dictionary. The
strange thing is, I think swearing (or not) is simply a habit and that, if you
want to, you can change your habits.

I should also note that there has been plenty of swearing at the places I've
worked over those 30 years, but I've only found a very small percentage of it
offensive, so I'd suggest that the article is reasonably accurate.

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mjn
An interesting aspect in Denmark is that _English_ profanities don't really
raise eyebrows in professional settings (or at least "fuck" and "shit" don't),
but swearing _in Danish_ in a workplace or university has to be done much more
carefully, and can come off as either offensive or crude or both. By swearing
primarily with loanwords, it seems to come off as somehow softer or less
"really" swearing.

edit: Was googling to see if I could find a good link on the subject. I
didn't, but _did_ find this event I'm now sad that I missed,
[http://nordisksprogkoordination.org/dokumenter-til-
download/...](http://nordisksprogkoordination.org/dokumenter-til-
download/Symposium%20on%20Swearing%20in%20the%20Nordic%20Countries.pdf)

~~~
TeMPOraL
It's similar in Poland; you can talk dirty in English all day long, but if you
actually swear in Polish, you're likely gonna to raise some eyebrows. My guess
is it's because throughout the years people got used to profanities in TV and
music, which is mostly American.

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singingfish
That cunt nailed it. To some degree anyway.

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andrewcooke
curiously, although the article mentions that american research is more
critical of swearing than uk research, it doesn't consider cultural
differences. as a brit working in an american company i have learnt that
swearing is _much_ less tolerated over there. after being met with stony
silence a couple of times i no longer do it.

would love to see nationalitites added to posts here. i suspect many posts at
this hour (early for the usa, and generally pro-swearing) are from the uk....

~~~
thisone
American in the UK.

I've had sexual harassment training in the US, and a lot of standards are
different between the two countries.

At least 5 things happen at work every day, that if they happened at one of
the companies I worked for in the US, the people involved would be brought to
HR.

I find workmates in the UK to be more matey at work, where as in the US, you
are co-workers at work, and mates only when you leave work.

~~~
koralatov
Depends very much on the workplace, and a lot of companies are becoming
increasingly `American' in their attitudes. it tends to be a function of size
as well: bigger companies are generally much stricter than smaller ones.

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alan_cx
Its all very easy with words like f _ck and c_ nt, best avoid unless you are
very sure of it, but the problem I come across is defining what actually is a
swear word. Where is the line drawn? A particular issue being words that
offend religious folk. "oh for god's sake" is to me completely soft, but I
have come across some people who are upset by that. But, is that swearing, or
just offending? Which is worse?

Most of the time I find that once you get to know a work place, you find that
it varies, as you would expect. Different people have different standards so
you need to get to know them. I don't think any one starts off swearing in
front of a boss, but if you work on say a building site, you'd probably get
swearing quick before the other decide you are a posh git who needs de-
bagging, or something.

The only time I personally think it really matters is when dealing with the
public, customers or clients. But if you man a phone, or are out in public,
swearing is a total no no. But, I suppose even then, there are loads of
exceptions. In the work place I see it as a personal 1-2-1 negotiation over
time. Or to put it another way, we individually learn when, where and who to
swear in front of.

To be honest though, I wonder if you are at more risk by offering opinion in
the work place. I know I would find it harder to work with people of certain
political views than any one who swears.

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Nursie
Shouting "Fuck you computer!", standing up and storming out of the room was
acceptable (but infrequent) practice at one of my previous workplaces. Nobody
seemed to mind.

I think I swear a little to easily. I used the C word at a barbecue the other
week, when I dropped a sausage in the coals. In front of all my friends'
children.... Ooops.

~~~
noja
Which C word?

Edit: link instead <http://www.noswearing.com/dictionary/c>

~~~
Nursie
Why, 'custard' of course!

Actually I meant the one so offensive to Americans that even the obscenity-
filled South Park balks at saying it. I must remember this when I travel to
the US next week.

~~~
koralatov
``Crumbs''? Or, if you're a fan of _Oor Wullie_ , ``Crivens''?

~~~
Nursie
Communist!!

;)

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theorique
Working on a trading desk is a great experience in creative profanity - as
well as discussion of the various things that dildos can do to various parts
of the body, fecal expulsion, and so forth. It's tons of fun.

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circlefavshape
In Ireland (where I live), swearing in front of someone generally means you
regard them as an equal. It's like calling someone "dude"

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modoc
Or just don't.

