Most often it strikes me as shallow. Like most comedians who swear, it typically masks a lack of substance.<p>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.
Why should we invoke imagery of feces or corpulation to make a point?<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
Totally agree. I've never understood people who seem afraid to use words.<p>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.
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.
The one magical word: <a href="http://www.twoguys.org/~gregh/fword.wav" rel="nofollow">http://www.twoguys.org/~gregh/fword.wav</a>. Warning: NSFW, unless perhaps you're working at 37signals.
Hey, whatever happened to DNFTT?<p>"Profanity Works" is a perfect example of trolling <i>(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)</i>.<p>Why are we biting? Is the obvious trollness obscured by the fact that it comes from 37Signals?
>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”).<p>I can't imagine how "fucking shoes" would be useful.
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?
And <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window</a> also works!
I swear.. a lot.<p>But as the article suggests, It's only when I'm really passionate about something or if I want to make something really clear.<p>I only use it for good, not evil. :)
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.<p>Eventually, we will probably have new curse words for english.
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.<p>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.