To be clear, the difference I'm calling out here is not that the cutural norm is stupid, but that it's only enforced in specific contexts for no apparent gain. I wouldn't say a large proportion of people are walking around in public naked, but a large proportion do swear in the course of normal speaking. Really, it's the news agencies which are the worst offenders in this regard, which is doubly bad because they will actually sacrifice clarity and accuracy to avoid these words. [1][2][3] Try searching for "cock" in any of the referenced articles. What does that achieve?

1: http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/31/politics/anthony-scaramucci/in...

2: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/07/27/anthony-scaramucc...

3: http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/anthony-scaramucci-steve-ba...

I don't understand why civility revolts so many people these days. I tell my son that he can use the F word whenever it makes contextual sense and also doesn't offend other people. For instance, he can use it around me, because to me it's just a word. I don't care. He can use it around his friends when it makes sense. But, he had better not use it around his grandparents.

Is it such a bad thing to ty to empathize with others and avoid offending when it's clear that an action or speech probably will? Maybe it's because these days speech is often read by potentially millions of people. And, in those cases, it's almost impossible to not offend someone. So, since it's probably impossible to not offend someone, one might as well just let loose and not worry if you offend everyone? Is that the logic - to avoid overthinking and cognitive overload?

> I tell my son that he can use the F word whenever it makes contextual sense

To be clear, I'm talking about news articles accurately referencing and representing what they are reporting. I'm not sure how you can get more contextually appropriate than that. I'm not talking about how professional communication should use swearing because it's fun. I'm talking about how they feel the need to go out of their way to not accurately represent the name of what they are talking about or the actual words that are the cause of the news itself.

It's like people being offended if my last name is "babcock" because it has "cock" in it. At some point it switches from one party making an effort to present themselves civilly to the other party being uncivil by taking umbrage over small, inconsequential items. In this case, news agencies are apparently so worried over the latter that journalism suffers (we'll call the article in question here journalism, and leave the Scaramucci news articles out of it to prevent muddying the issue...). I think that's a real shame.

It's offensive when journalists feel they need to dance around particular words. It smacks of white knighting in defense of the putatively large group of sensitive Puritans who will take offense at accurately quoting a naughty word.

Down the slippery slope to trigger words and microagressions.

Musk is also "dancing around particular words" by using initials.

I totally get your opinion that language should be used more freely. But at the end of the day - different things are appropriate in different contexts. Some of these we feel strongly about, others, we may not.

> A bathing suit is not considered appropriate at a wedding.

> Emoji is not considered appropriate at a funeral.

> White pants are not considered appropriate after Labor Day.

> Swearing is not considered appropriate in certain styles of journalism.

All of these, when viewed at a low enough level of abstraction (we're all just atoms!) make no sense. But that doesn't mean we should do away with them all.

For all those examples, there are situations where that becomes appropriate. I'm not arguing that childrens programming needs to incorporate swearing, or that regular adult television needs to (it already has for the most part), but when a news article can't accurately quote someone when it's integral to the story or reference the name of what the article is about, they are doing it wrong. I greatly care about information accuracy and historical accuracy. If ever there are times when the journalistic rule about including swearing should be relaxed, when the entire article is about an utterance that contains a swear word is one of those occassions.

> Really, it's the news agencies which are the worst offenders in this regard, which is doubly bad because they will actually sacrifice clarity and accuracy to avoid these words.

News agencies do not sell clarity and accuracy, they sell advertising views. Enough of the suppliers of advertising views will stop supplying that good for news agencies to sell if they encounter a “fuck”, even in a context where it wouldn't earn an FCC fine, that news agencies have a clear economic incentive to avoid the word.

Yeah, I understand the chain that causes this, but the root is the same. The advertisers are only upset because of those same bogeyman.

The problem is ultimately those people that care that the word is used, but not why or how.

To me that feels like something society is struggling with lately. People looking for something to belong to, and attaching themselves to groups and causes without fully understanding the cause. Promoting civility is good. Condemning certain words in all contexts is not about civility. It's about proving you belong.