Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Profanity Doesn't Work

hanselman.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 93 posts

Re: Profanity Doesn't Work

#81

Post by cleverjake »

tensor wrote: post #53
cleverjake wrote: post #50

This is totally a matter of culture. My father worked for a (US) national company that actually required etiquette training for their representatives from the northeast, because they were so much more prone to swearing in casual conversation, that it would cause others to be drawn aback and brought out of the conversation. Not to mention when you get to international differences. My australian exchange student in hig…

But regardless, I thought one of the biggest points of hacker news was the ability to grok out meaning of news and opinions, and not debate the effectiveness of its communication. I think it's quite the opposite. The community has grown around an appreciation for effectively communicating and discussing ideas. This is why comments with little information and inflammatory comments are typically down voted. In terms of…

Of course, and I agree, however that is focusing on this particular part of the conversation strikes me as extremely superfluous. "shit work" is a colloquialism. A crass one? perhaps. But to say that it is harming the community - when it is communication within the community, just seems like FUD to me. And then to go on and claim the rest of his articles are offensive as well, simply for using one of a select few words that /this/ author finds offensive just seems like muckraking.

If anyone can show me a single instance where a casual public curse has hurt anyone in our community, I will gladly eat my hat.

Re: Profanity Doesn't Work

#82

Post by Tsagadai »

vacri wrote: post #70
Tsagadai wrote: post #11

I disagree with the article. Swearing is highly effective but only if rarely used. The article's author hints at innuendo, euphemisms, dysphemisms and doublespeak as alternatives to swearing. I am a firm believer and follower of concise eloquence so avoiding calling a spade a spade is akin to heresy. Come out and say it, don't avoid words when they perfectly describe something. Think of swearing as an alternative to…

The article's author hints at innuendo, euphemisms, dysphemisms and doublespeak as alternatives to swearing. I love wordplay and regularly engage in it with my friends. But to write an article using wordplay as the basic tool for explaining anything other than wordplay is worse than being offensive. You run the risk of alienating a lot of English-as-second-language folks for a start, as they lack a lot of the fluency…

Second-language English speakers should always be seen as your target audience for any professional communication. Most English speakers alive today do not speak English as their first language. Also, many who speak English as a first language are not experts in English either. Metaphor, idiom and wordplay are great, interesting and they have their uses, mainly in social contexts and for identifying yourself as a member of a group. But they do little but confuse and isolate readers or listeners who aren't part of your cultural or linguistic group. Most of what I write professionally is devoid of complex words and almost every literary technique in order to be as accessible as possible (Hacker News doesn't count, I'm being myself in this forum).

As for American English not having metaphors, do you not notice all of the sporting metaphors frequently used by almost every stereotypical American manager? Out of the the ball park, centre field, hit a home run, loaded bases, the bullpen, etc. I'm Australian so I spent a month watching American sports to grasp what some managers were on about in conference calls.

Re: Profanity Doesn't Work

#83

Post by shanselman »

buff-a wrote: post #77
shanselman wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a coincidence. Not everything in my life has to do with my employer. FWIW, note that I work from home on open source and many of our projects are on GitHub. Zach and I are cool. No one's in a twist, we just differ on how to reach an audience.

Its not that you differ on how to reach your audience. Its that you felt you had to call someone out on their personal blog post for using the word "shit". And while not everything in your life has to do with your employer, certainly your personal attitudes determine what kind of company you work for. Zach works for a start-up, shaking up the world of software development. You work for Microsoft, the living example o…

Thanks for the update. Point taken, and touché. That is funny/ironic. Would be equally as much were I to work at Apple, Amazon or Google, I suppose.

I spoke to Zach beforehand and wasn't intending to call him out (which I thought I made clear in the post, but it sounds like I did poorly) but rather than use his post as an example of changing mores in this space and a opporunity to provoke discussion.

Aside: I won't try to defend Microsoft as it's 80,000 people and many, many groups, some less evil than others. That said, our group is the slightly less evil, open source, free as in beer part of Microsoft. We'll be speaking at http://krtconf.com next week on an open source realtime library we're having lots of fun with.

Re: Profanity Doesn't Work

#84

Post by dorian-graph »

vacri wrote: post #78
dorian-graph wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case people are assuming I'm American, I'll clarify. I'm not American, at all. My father is from Glasgow and I was born in Australia (Australians are known for their liberal swearing, it's the culture, apparently)—what other culture aside from Scots and Australians swear more and are less likely to be offended by it? ;) With flaws/weaknesses I agree that they should be 'embraced' so that they can be improved upon…

It seems a common idea so far here and in most places is that 'not swearing' is inherently a religious side-effect. I have friends who are not religious and maintain their concepts of good, clean speech, of valuing what they say. Two of the most proficient users of profanity I know are a pair of linguists, mother and daughter. They are both heavily passionate about the English language and will engage on the topic fo…

> It's a total and utter misconception that 'people who really care about language don't swear'. Anyone spending time with passionate linguists, speech pathologists, and English Lit enthusiasts will know that use of profanity is not uncommon amongst that demographic.

That isn't quite what I was implying. There is a difference between being aware of how beautiful languages are and being able to mechanically use them well and those who value what they say and the effect of them.

An example is, I have a friend in the Philippines who when speaking while she does not have an exhaustive vocabulary (I'm not talking about English but her native tongue), as she is from the lower class and most simply use the conversational version of their dialect, obviously valued what she said and would do her to best to simply speak well, convey her ideas, have tact, etc.

Then there are those I know who do care for what they say though swear as well so we return, apparently, simply to one's opinion of profanity. Out of that comes understanding and respect. People who have been in support of this person's blog post have been told to loosen up, implied that they're puritants, mocked, etc. I've seen the same happen in other respects like at university I overheard a group of people commenting about another student because she chose to dress well and not reveal half her body and they said she was a religious nut and other derogatory things. Funny thing is, she's not religious.

Here and elsewhere people have said, basically, "I'm going to swear and I don't care if you're offended" and while I find the concept of being offended usually ridiculous it shows a lack of understanding.

Re: Profanity Doesn't Work

#85

Post by dorian-graph »

mambodog wrote: post #46

As a non-American, seeing people get upset about a bit of colourful language is quite amusing.

I'm a non-American as well. Other nationalities aside from Americans often have words in their language that cause others to be upset. I can think of some in the Philippines where I lived for a few years (If there's any Filipinos, I'm not fluent in Tagalog so I'm not aware of the 'bad words' there though I'm fluent in Hiligaynon and decent at some other local dialects) and I have friends who can speak Japanese, German, French and other languages who while living in those countries said they came across equally offensive/upsetting words.

Re: Profanity Doesn't Work

#86

Post by [deleted] »

gliese1337 wrote: post #37
sams99 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are always offended for "other" people, I would be curious to hear the thoughts of a person who is truly offended by the word fuck. Does it have some magic powers that cause it to fire off a pain circuit in mutant brains?

It has well-understood powers to fire off pain circuits in perfectly normal brains. Stephen Pinker gave a talk on the subject at Google a few years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBpetDxIEMU Swear words are swear words because they actually are processed differently in your brain than regular propositional speech is. They're the linguistic counterpart of the emotional signals used by other social animals. The di…

[deleted]

Re: Profanity Doesn't Work

#87

Post by michaelcampbell »

Dove wrote: post #67
sams99 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are always offended for "other" people, I would be curious to hear the thoughts of a person who is truly offended by the word fuck. Does it have some magic powers that cause it to fire off a pain circuit in mutant brains?

I find profanity offensive in general. It's not words themselves that matter. It's what people mean by them. Saying "please", vacuous as it might be, communicates consideration. Profanity communicates the opposite. Of course, it isn't that simple; language is language and context is everything. Sometimes someone swearing at you means, "Some people would be offended by this, but I know you can take it." The inconsider…

> Profanity communicates the opposite.

To you. By adopting this mindset, you give the word much more power than the speaker is (most likely) intending.

By all means it's your right to be offended and maintain your personal standards for such things, but don't mistake you being offended with someone else trying to offend.

Re: Profanity Doesn't Work

#90

Post by bborud »

tensor wrote: post #60
techshit wrote: post #41

Profanity is popular in the tech community because it conveys that we don't give a fuck about offending people as we challenge existing norms. People are going to object to that; if they're not offended, we're not doing a good enough job.

My dislike of swearing in the tech community has little to do with challenging norms or offending people. Although it's certainly crass, if you want to have such a personality you are welcome to. The problem with it is that it dilutes meaning and hinders communication. Let's take the article being discussed. What exactly is shit work ? Is it unnecessary work? Is it unpleasant work? Perhaps it's work for which you are…

The points you raise on precision in communication are valid, but they are somewhat orthogonal to the question of whether it is acceptable to use colorful language or not. It smells a bit too much of the old accusation that the use of expletives indicates a small vocabulary or that the speaker has poor command of language.

I would also like to add that I think proper swearing is a bit of an art. There has to be rythm and contrast to it. A well placed expletive in an articulate context is a thing of beauty. Not everyone can pull that off.

Of course, for those incapable of elegance, there's always sheer volume. Which is a demanding discipline in its own right. For the past 20 years or so there has been a recording making the rounds in Norway of a bus driver taped while trying to fix a washing machine. In Norway it is, in all seriousness, considered somewhat of a national treasure. (Swearing is such a part of Northern Norwegian culture that calling a police officer a horse penis is legally acceptable north of the polar circle, but not to the south of it).

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

(The recording circulated on tapes in the pre-internet era so the sound quality is pretty bad. But most people of the internet generation will know what you are talking about if you mention "saltdal.wav").

Post reply on HN