Around middle school, I decided that I would stop using swear words, because it seemed like getting myself in trouble by letting one slip out at an inappropriate time was more of a bother than just avoiding them and coming up with more inventive ways to express myself.

Refraining from curse words has been part of my character ever since, and just about everybody who knows me knows that I don't swear. And you know what? I have never missed those words. I have some of the most foul-mouthed friends you can imagine, and the words don't shock or scandalize me. They're just not a part of my vocabulary.

I have never, so far as I know, suffered a single negative consequence because I don't curse. But the benefits have gone far beyond never getting detention at school or grounded by my parents because of the use of salty language. For instance, it's led me to stretch myself creatively when I really need to express exasperation or any other strong emotion. And it's led me to notice that some swear words, far from being innocuous, can be really debasing, and to have empathy for those on the receiving end.

I'm glad that works for you, but the implication underneath is that no one "needs" to use swear words, and that they somehow make you a less interesting person. Again, glad that works for you, but everyone's needs differ, and making subtextual judgments about people's lack of ability to be creative without swearing is a little below the belt.

Personally I tend to mainly swear as an exclamation, and try not to use them when describing things or especially people. I don't think that's specific to swear words, though... I prefer not to trash talk people using any kind of language, though I'm certainly not perfect and I do it more often than I'd like.

I've heard this argument before (and I tend to agree with it), but here's a counter-point I heard recently and appreciated:

Eloquence and good vocabulary are important, but there is a time and place for something vulgar and basic.

Just like there's a time and place for a rapier and there's also a time and place for a folding chair or a pool cue.

This. People who swear do it so frequently it looses the power. It shows a lack of vocabulary more than any sort of moral failing. If you only swear rarely you get a lot more impact when you do, vs. the person who cannot avoid every 3rd word being a blue one.

Also, there are some truly eloquent swears out there!

Words are vulgar because they are overused.

It's the original definition of "vulgar" - "characteristic of or belonging to the masses." Hence, it became taboo for the upper classes to utter vulgarities, because it signaled lack of learning.

TV Tropes has an article on that: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PrecisionFStrike

Contrast: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ClusterFBomb

Yup, some people swear so much it becomes a stop- or filler word, padding out a sentence unnecessarily.

I mean you could insert a variation of "fuck" half a dozen times in the above sentence and it would add nothing of value to it.

Emphasis.

Am I suggesting you should do this with all your sentences? Absolutely not. However, I would certainly not read the two sentences the same.

(Food for thought: spices do not generally add nutritional value to food. Yet, each has their own preference as to whether, and how heavily their food should be spiced.)

> It shows a lack of vocabulary more than any sort of moral failing.

Here, now, I call nonsense on that one. I (probably?) swear more than most of my friends in private, casual communication circles. I also have a much greater vocabulary than any of them (this is not hubris --- I'm frequently told to explain words I use; I chalk this up to being better-read throughout my life). It just doesn't follow that because a person favors certain words, that they must not understand or feel comfortable with others.

I don't think vulgar goes along with basic, the four letter, Germanic versions of fornicate and defecate have a whole range of varied, nuanced, often contradictory meanings that capture the irreducible complexity of lived experience.

The Latin derived versions just make everything so bloodless, so focused on one particular aspect of the concept. They really are the simple words, even if they have more letters.

What many people consider the strongest English vulgarity is derived from the Latin cunnus.

I'm amazed at British TV shows even whimsical gameshows where everyone swears like a sailor. But when someone dares to say the "c word" it's bleeped and everyone gasps.

I recall that the c-word used to be common too, then the idea that it was "the female n-word" was imported from the US.

As someone who has an Australian friend, the avoidance of that word is definitely not universal.

But not so much in the UK, right?

That's a good point!

I meant basic in the lowbrow/highbrow sense, not with regards to complexity, but I understand your point.

ESL here. At school one teacher told us using swear words only show your lack of knowledge for better words. I took that to heart and the very few times I've used them, I really had no other option. However I've noticed swear words come more easily to me in English and don't feel as harsh as when I hear them in Spanish. I wonder if it's my lack of vocabulary.

There's actually been interesting research done about that idea, that people who swear have a smaller vocabulary or are less fluent. It seems that the opposite is actually true¹, people who swear are actually demonstrating a broader fluency. Worth a read!

¹ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03880...

I've never given credence to the "cursing == less articulate" either. It's knowing the impact dropping a curse can have to get people's attention. Plus, sometimes, people are just too dense to get how bothered you are, but drop a colorful phrase, and they tend to get the point. Like the George Carlin bit, take a word like "incredible" and it's a nice word. Stick fuck in the middle of it to make "infuckingcredible" and it's an even better word. Fanfuckingtastic > fantastic and is much more impactful than "most fantastic". Having said all of that, I have never told someone FU. That's my line.

> Fanfuckingtastic > fantastic and is much more impactful than "most fantastic"

I’ve always heard and used that “word” in the sarcastic sense, rather than as meaning more/most fantastic. Using in context to illustrate:

Friend: I broke the part we need to finish the project.

Me: Fanfuckingtastic, guess I’ll get busy making another one.

well, people have misused grammar for ages <ducks>

Again though, that's the great thing about "swear" word. Shit can be good, shit can be bad, and shit can just be shit. Not being a grammarian, how many words other than curse words be a noun, verb and adjective all at the same time. buffalo comes to mind, but is just non-nonsensical when used.

> Not being a grammarian, how many words other than curse words be a noun, verb and adjective all at the same time.

Here’s just a few, there’s a bunch more:

- back

- best

- better

- bitter

- broadside

- clean

- clear

- close

- cod

- collect

- counter

- crisscross

- damn

- double

- down

- even

- express

- fair

- fast

- fine

- firm

- flush

- forward

- free

- full

- home

- jolly

- last

- light

- low

- o.k.

- okay

- out

- pat

- plain

- plumb

- plump

- pop

- prompt

- quiet

- right

- rough

- round

- second

- short

- solo

- square

- steady

- still

- tiptoe

- true

- upstage

- well

- wholesale

- worst

- wrong

- zigzag

As an added bonus, the words above aren’t just valid as nouns, verbs, and adjectives, they are also adverbs too.

Source: https://onweb3.wordpress.com/2013/08/14/663/

I love that there are grammatical rules in how you can and can't infix expletives.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dt22yWYX64w

It doesn't surprise me that people with larger overall vocabularies also have larger swear vocabularies. But the study you cite deals only with taboo word fluency, not with actual usage.

I would be curious whether high-vocab swearers diverge from low-vocab swearers in how they actually use bad language. In my experience, even my high-vocab friends drop f-bombs in substantially the same way that lower-vocab friends do. I don't buy the "lack of vocab" hypothesis, because no one smurfs swear words as a smurfy substitutes for inadequate vocab, but as for the "lazy language" hypothesis, I think it's possible to use curse words as a crutch even if you have the capacity to do otherwise.

And fluency doesn't necessarily indicate usage. I could rattle off many taboo words with which I am acquainted, but that doesn't mean I choose to use them.

I hypothesize that the "swearing => stunted vocabulary" argument is just a post hoc rationalization to give some justification for not liking bad words.

I think you're wrong.

There are two distinct populations (in UK), those of poor vocabulary who use swearing all the time and don't seem capable of speaking in a nuanced way. And those who have the vocabulary to not swear, can still express themselves without expletives but choose to use them depending on the company/context they're in.

I found as a teenager that I'd swear to try and appear cool, and when I lacked sufficient nuance to my vocabulary to clearly express my feelings, and decided I wanted to do better.

I don't really care if you swear - except in front of children (because they have to learn not to swear in the wrong context when they can get in trouble from others who are more conservative) - but unless you demonstrate otherwise I'll assume it's lack of decent vocabulary.

Almost all people I've worked with who've sworn a lot (amongst general company) have had very low levels of education.

I don't really understand the whole "these words are shocking" attitude, eg cunt, people give simple utterances too much power.

Some of my favorites come from the Jargon Lexicon.[0]

0) http://hackersdictionary.com/html/The-Jargon-Lexicon-framed....

I'd love to see something like the entropy of words actually used by people who use common crutch words (e.g. fucking, literally, whatever) more often (somehow correcting for the fact that people who use any set of words unusually often will have lower entropy).

I think it's a part of a broader challenge. In writing circles, there's always advice not to use some specific list of words. The list varies. An example list from a quick googling:

- really, very

- just

- totally, completely, absolutely

- thing

- some

- rather, quite, somewhat, somehow

- ...

Like all style advice, it's not really a "rule" to follow, but it's surprisingly difficult to avoid some of these words. I struggle with "really" and "just." It makes you work, but your language is better for it.

I think many swear words fall into this category of words that are really easy to use. These lists always heavily feature strengthening modifiers, and swear words are often strengthening modifiers. Especially "fucking" which is just a really fucking versatile thing to use.

I wouldn't say relying on these crutch words is a lack of knowledge or fluency, but maybe it's a lack of versatility and easy varied expressiveness. Relying on these crutch words makes it harder to be specific.

At work, we have a trillion custom slack emojis, and one is a big X with the caption “no-just”, encouraging people to refrain using just in sentences like “you just need to set up the Kafka consumer”.

Now that I’m writing this out, it sounds kinda dystopian , but I actually appreciate the doublethink. I believe that pruning “just” (and cousins like “really” “very”, “it” the direct object/noun, “something”) has increased the clarity of my writing.

I think that these words actually do have a use, but only in long recurring interactions where it’s clear that you don’t use these words in everyday communication. Humans are language detectives, and will detect these changes in speech as a signal of emotion. When you’re sincerely emotional about something, these normally vacuous words can be super meaningful. You can even use them in documentation (sparingly), to make a point.

There’s a Tao Te Ching verse about how the wise practice “not-talking”. The implication is that normalizing silence makes words more meaningful: words only carry meaning because they contrast with silence, so if you’re talking all the time nobody will listen to you. It’s a good idea with many implications and applications, and I think it applies to these words. :)

But "you need to set up the Kafka consumer" and "you just need to set up the Kafka consumer" have different meanings.

You're not just pruning, but changing the meaning. The latter implies there is only one thing you need to do, while the former is open ended, and could imply the beginning of a set of needs.

"Just" can also add emphasis. "That's stupid" and "that's just stupid" have different nuance.

Perhaps the intent is to not be belittling, or, relatedly, not imply that something should be trivial for everyone.

If someone replied to me that I "just need to set up the Kafka consumer" I'd have no idea how to do that, and would potentially feel embarrassed about needing to ask for further information.

Yeah you’re right. Most sentences don’t survive subtracting the word “just” exactly as they were written. It’s more food for thought. I agree it changes the meaning, and I wouldn’t advocate a universal ban (your example is evidence for the second half of my original post, I think).

Spanish-speaking at home but grew up in the US speaking english everywhere else.

I've wondered all my life why swearing feels less intense in Spanish than in English. Spanish broadcasts are rarely censored on TV or Radio. Maybe it is a cultural thing?

I am also bilingual. My pet theory is that it has to do with growing up, family authority over you as a child, etc. As a kid if you say a strong curse word you could likely get in trouble and it would be a memorable negative experience. But if you say it in a different language outside your family home there is rarely a negative consequence.

My family was particularly absurd: my mother wouldn’t curse and wouldn’t say the word for shit in Russian but would use the English word “shit” as a curse word. Go figure.

cursing in english, for me at least, doesn't feel... real (compared to my native language).

in english, i swear like a pirate while on my native language, i try not to do it.

I'm Russian, though I moved to the US at age 5 so English is my 'native' language, even though it's technically not.

I see this on both sides. I find American curse words harsher than Russian ones, but my parents are the opposite. I can drop a "fuck" and no one really minds, drop a "suka" (roughly equates to "bitch" in Russian), my parents will loose their minds.

I’m sure my parents would do the same if I dropped one in English, even though they are not native English speakers.

Googling for 'swearing in second language' gives lots of articles about how it feels less intense. Eg

https://www.connexionfrance.com/Mag/Language/Swearing-in-a-s...

https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2017/mar/27/bad-lan...

Same thing here. I think the difference is whether the swear words are ingrained as part of "absorbing" the language as a child, as opposed to learning it "properly" as an adult. Basically, whether you only understand their meaning rationally, or it's a deeply ingrained taboo.

I think it's a pretty common thing for speakers of multiple languages to feel that their secondary language(s) carry less emotional weight. Random article on the subject: https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2017/mar/27/bad-lan...

I've always wholeheartedly agreed with Stephen Fry's view on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_osQvkeNRM

I love and appreciate swear words. They're incredibly important as an act of protest and defiance against the prudes and the cultural censors.

The eventual normalization of swear words will show that we have won the battle.

Once a word is normalized, speaking it is no longer cussing. ;)

Now imagine that you did use one of those swear words. Imagine the attention you would garner. People would know that something is dreadfully wrong.

My high school English teacher taught that all words can be used either skillfully or unskillfully -- swear words included. Knowing when to use the word and when not to use the word is part of having proficiency in the language.

Of course, trying to arrange your life so that you don't have to use that particular proficiency does seem like something good to aim for ;-)

I got out of the habit of course words during the 15 years or so when my kids were growing up.

Family agreed as of high school that we could all use rude language.

And I have discovered I don't want to anymore.

I am 50+ years old now, and I get far more satisfaction out of calling someone a "poopy-head". When necessary.

Not sure why. Haven't compared notes with other adults. Did not expect this.

I’ve chosen to give up profanity online, and it’s generally not a huge problem but I run into issues occasionally. I need to be creative when quoting people sometimes as I try to ship around their cursing. Certain phrases just lack i the right “oomph”: I might call someone impolite while really wanting to use another term.

I also don't cuss / use profane language. However, I have found a few idioms that just don't quite translate. For example, my co-workers laugh at me for saying "for kicks and giggles" instead of "s$!#s and giggles".

I've also seen people in leadership positions use a lot of foul language and it can really bring down the professionalism. As someone that doesn't use that language I find that avoid the trap of letting something slip in the wrong situation.

It’s really unfair but you come across as a Ned Flanders type here.

I mean for kicks and giggles. You know you mean shits and giggles, they know you mean shits and giggles, the phrase makes no sense with kicks.

Seems pointdiddlyointless.

Does it make sense with "shits"?

I mean really, if you stop to think about it, what does it mean to do things "for shits"? Is there a sensibly apparent meaning, or is it like the word "cool", where people attach meaning that the word doesn't formally have?

FYI, where I come from both phrases are considered reasonable. Without researching the matter, it isn't even clear to me that "shits and giggles" is the original phrase from which the other is derived. I suppose it's all a product of environment in the end.

I share the general sentiment though. I heard all kinds of "interesting" phrases growing up that didn't seem to be pointful. For example, people who would say "P.O.'d" in lieu of "pissed off", and become offended if you used the actual phrase. I always felt it was silly. Use the phrase or don't.

Willard Smith Jr! is that you?

How do you express yourself when you drop something heavy on your toe?

Ouch. Or no words, long intake of breath, while hopping around on the other foot.

So what do you use? Gosh darn it to heck? What the frick?

I liked "frack" and derivatives in BSG2.

I think a very creative movie was actually Johnny Dangerously

Farghin' ice hole.

OK, I had to look at IMDb:

> Roman Moroni: I would like to direct this to the distinguished members of the panel: You lousy cork-soakers. You have violated my farging rights. Dis somanumbatching country was founded so that the liberties of common patriotic citizens like me could not be taken away by a bunch of fargin iceholes... like yourselves.

In The Witcher games they use "ploughing" instead of "fucking", which somehow sounds more obscene to me.

> Words are words and censoring “bad” words is silly. You can’t censor meaning. “Fk you” is just as powerful a statement as “fuck you”. Especially if it censors words like “associating” or “Cummings” or “arsenal”. This is just fodder for the unnecessary censorship memes.

One of my childhood friends kept calling his brother names. He was told off and told he couldn't do that any more... He promptly changed to call his brother by the name of cheeses.

His brother certainly instantly recognized that "gouda" etc. was just as clearly an insult as any of the other things he had been called, and got just as angry.

It's intent. I went to a boarding school, kids lived in 'houses' with housemasters. They were pretty good, not as dickensian as it sounds.

Depending on the housemaster, and provided you didn't make a habit of it you could call them wankers or more, occasionally get away with calling them a cunt. All relaxed.

But if you intended to offend then far lighter swear words would be taken much more seriously. You could get into trouble just for using the word 'bloody' if it was not meant in jest. Odd, but it worked in my view.

Yup, intent is more important than the actual words.

An acquaintance has taken to using a feature or piece of wardrobe as an insult, e.g. "Baseball cap" or whatever.

There's also a story that I can't remember fully (my girlfriend knows it) where "prairie hat" became an insult.

Ya bloody prairie hat!

...I'm saving this one ;)

Couldn't agree more. They're just words. Sure, words that have been used to target particular groups of people to oppress and demean them shouldn't be used. But your garden variety swear words? Whatever.

> “Fk you” is just as powerful a statement as “fuck you”.

This always grates on me. Do people actually think they're not swearing, or the impact is less, simply because they leave out letters or replace some letters with a dash or asterisk? It just strikes me as childishness.

FWIW, I think you've done an excellent job of teaching your kids to develop a healthy relationship with swearing. I especially appreciate you going into the nuances of a word like "hell" with them; intent and context does matter. I wish there were more parents like you.

From a cursory examination of the site I deduce this is either a piece of satire or a silly joke (maybe both). So relax, this is not a serious effort to censor :-)

(Also I commend your child rearing technique vis-a-vis swearing. Seems a very sensible approach.)

I would further refine them from "adult" words to "coarse" words.

Everyone needs to know when to be polite and when to be coarse as various situations require. (It's a social skill.) Furthermore, they need to be capable of being polite when required.

As a child, you can't be allowed to be coarse all the time because learning politeness takes practice and work, so it'd be like skipping your homework in this area.

At some point, hopefully you've mastered that, and then can be a responsible person (probably an adult) who applies things as appropriate.

This is a really good take, and in my opinion strikes a needed balance between two extreme opinions that seem to be dominating this thread:

"Swear words don't matter at all, they're just words like any other word. You should teach them to your children and allow them to swear at home. Everyone should be able and willing to swear at all times and in all situations, even during diplomacy missions."

"Swear words are only used by ignorant and stupid people, because they immediately reveal that you have no better vocabulary for the situation. I don't use swear words ever, because I, an intelligent person, am always in control of my emotions and have a total grasp of the vocabulary of my native language."

Obviously these positions are exaggerated for comedic effect, but you do see some comments come pretty close! In my opinion, both fail to realize that in the normal course of human life we encounter a wide range of situations that call for formality or casualness. Not being too uptight about one's language can help smooth the latter, and it doesn't mean one isn't able to precisely control one's language in the former.

I think it's more a joke to get people to type rude words than an actual censorship mechanic.

Much like funny film clips where people bleep innocuous phrases to make them sound sweary. That's the joke, see?

Swearing had a noticeable impact on my ability to use more nuanced and descriptive vocabulary and it has been really hard to undo. I've also noticed that not swearing and expressing things without expletives tends to make me more memorable to people, which seems beneficial in some circumstances.

That said, I'm all for not taking the loony puritan angle when it comes to language and kids.

While I am not for any kind of censorship, if someone doesn't know swear words, would they be able to use them? Is swearing orthogonal to human nature?

I had known few kids who didn't know what swearing was and they never did anything similar to swearing. Is there value in swearing? If not, what's the argument for letting kids learn about it?

It's an interesting thought. Would limiting the vocabulary lead to people expressing less.

Is there any controlled experiment on similar? Can this affect complex thoughts or they can still be conveyed?

Tangential, but I recall a pop sci write up of a paper that claimed the experience of pain was lessened if the experiencer was allowed to swear. Fact-checking this claim is left as an exercise for the reader, sorry.

Sounds correct to me. Swearing (with whatever words) takes your mind of your stubbed toe.

I don’t think the actual words are relevant to the act of swearing.

I think I tend to say 'ow' very loudly, and then start swearing at the inanimate object whose fault it clearly was.

You're looking for the wonderful-sounding "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis", which is a great thing to trot out at dinner parties (if those ever become a thing again).

I guess I can see the added value of swearing in Klingon — kind of the reverse of bowdlerization.

You could have wedged a couple of a Klingon swear words in there to give us something to start with. The only Klingon I know is q'pla (sp?).

Fikanta filo de hundino! (Not Klingon, tio estas aĉa aro da merderoj.)

> Is there value in swearing?

For kids, I can definitely see it's value in improving their reputation inside kids community by signaling their "grownup abilities".

A nice counter may be a font that uses ligatures to replace benign impotent words with their more forceful and blunt equivalents.

Or that undoes self-censoring like fk or a$$. I mean come on, who thinks that actually "protects" the reader or whyever they do it?

Kind of curious, isn't it? It gets around filters, but I assume that's not what you're talking about.

I imagine some people have psychological aversions to "filthy" words like this; and that seeing such substitute words is less uncomfortable for them. That does, however, beg the question: if the intent is to avoid giving offense, why not avoid the word in the first place?

I think you missed the humor of the creator of this font. He clearly is doing it as a technical demo.

Yes, I think it's a local site for local people and others who don't need that explaining. That may be more obvious from the home page. (Who is "he" amongst the contributors?)

> would you ever actually do that?

I take it as no more than just a bit of typeface fun.

I don't curse. I used to do lots of consulting work. Not cursing never seemed to hold me back. I also found I tended to be less angry then the often times it seemed idiotic folks who were always having big disasters and cursing.

In my line of work people were paying to get problems solved, not to hire someone who rants and raves. And some of the best money is in solving problems that others stomp around and rant about in my experience. If you reliably solve problems, your hourly rate goes through the roof in consulting.

I totally didn't value my time properly at the beginning ($25/hr!!) -> now it's incredibly higher - I've no idea what I was thinking at the beginning.

I guess there are two parts: being angry, and using offensive words.

I suspect avoiding the former helped much more than avoiding the latter?

If you want to get paid a fair bit of money and are not some name brand genius (Steve jobs etc) I think you have to be someone folks are eager to work with, ask questions etc. I'm sure the psychologists would be able to expand on this.

For some, that means you don't laugh at them. For some who don't curse it may mean you don't say "F*ck" all the time. For some it's skipping lots of strong political talk when trying to do work. For some its being smart and being able to have an interesting conversation. For some it's having a clear technical opinion backed by experience (ie, you can provide good clear direction). For some its always trying to understand their problem before solving it.

A lot of the folks who say their behavior should be fine (ie, cursing, getting into politics) the point is that it's not per se wrong, it's just doesn't in my view lead to someone a large group of folks are eager to work with. Telling other people to be OK with your behavior (even if you are "right") is not always comfortable - and these folks can be very very confrontational and don't handle other views well often.

Censorship (in my opinion) has a time and a place. And it should always be a choice, never forced on you. This is an extremely controversial topic that seems to get a lot of people's emotions running hot, so please try and counter that before responding. In my opinion, censorship of media is a personal preference akin to food aversions. Picking the mushrooms out of a chef's dish isn't censorship, nor an insult to his art. It's personal preference.

For example, GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire series has a great story with tons of intrigue, but it is marred (in my opinion, don't all jump on me), by an over-reliance on sex jokes, explicit sex scenes, and extremely explicit violence/gore.

It turns out, you can tone down that stuff (using Calibre) and it makes the book so much better, (again, in my opinion) without losing anything of value. The story is still perfectly in tact, but now more stuff is left to the imagination (implicit instead of explicit). Instead of being described in great detail how a corpse is rotting in a cage and how the maggots are eating the various sex organs, it's now just a decaying corpse in a cage.

Same for movies. I enjoy watching censored (TV edited) movies with my teenagers, like "The Matrix".

I suppose it depends on what you consider valuable. Some details will matter more to some people than others.

Essentially, those details you're removing are flavor. Alright, so you don't like the particular flavor here. I'm not going to tell you that you should. There's a certain level of gratuity beyond which I lose appreciation as well. For my part though, I want the experience as envisioned by the author. If I don't like it, I'd rather avoid the content entirely, rather than censor it. This is because, to me, it's all interconnected --- the primary plot, the flavor, all the little details --- everything. I guess I'm a purist. I'm also not the type to pick ingredients out of a dish.

If you want to modify content for your personal consumption though, well, I don't see the harm in that. As you say, it's a personal choice.

Do your teenagers prefer watching the censored version?

How can you tone that down?

Mainly by deleting explicit extraneous details so that more is left to the imagination.

"There was another dead man beyond the old one, a big red-bearded man with a rotting grey bandage covering his left ear and part of his temple. But the worst thing was between his legs, where nothing remained but a crusted brown hole crawling with maggots."

becomes

"There was another dead man beyond the old one, a big red-bearded man with a rotting grey bandage covering his left ear and part of his temple."

I personally find explicit gore like that revolting, and I also don't like reading explicit descriptions of sex organs and/or act of sex so I deleted them. I remove the explicit descriptions of the sex organs and act of sex, while leaving it clear that the characters are sleeping together.

I think this is based off the rather amusing story of someone writing an overzealous curse word filter that didn't allow people from Scunthorpe to write the name of their town.

It's an art project over and above anything else.

I remember watching a interview where the curse words were bleat out on purpose. At the start the person was clear and easy to understand, but as the interview continued the person got angrier and angrier, and started to swear more. As time continue he was swearing more and more.

At the end of the interview the teacher said "Clearly he was angry, what was he angry about?". No-one could answer, swear words carry some emotions but they have NO useful information beyond that. The more person swears, the less they are communicating.

But the actual words were removed. It sounds as if it was presumed from the start that those words were without value, and that colored the whole presentation. The removal of the "valueless" words removed any chance of you inferring meaning through context.

Watch that same interview without the censorship, and you might well understand it. Watch another one, without any cursing, with random words censored, and you might have trouble understanding it as well.

Bullshit.

:) see, I only said one word and you clearly understand my meaning.

I've tried to frame it with my kids in a similar way as automobiles and power tools. They're not bad words as much as strong ones, and could hurt people if used improperly.

When my daughter was about 5 we were on public transit and a bunch of teens were talking near us. Every second or third word was 'fuck' or 'shit'. My daughter asked why they talk that way. I told her it was because they didn't know enough words to say what they meant.

15 years later, she speaks two languages fluently and 2 more at about middle school level. She swears a little, but she knows how to say what she means.

That's just your victorian judgementalness coming out. It has nothing to do with vocabulary. And it certainly has nothing to do with how many languages your kid knows.

Anyone who grew up with conservative parents rolled their eyes at your post. "Ok dad".

Btw, she just learned to swear when you're not around. And when you eventually find this out, rest assured it's not that you failed her vocabulary, it's just because she met some friends that swear.

Of course she learned to swear from her friends. For better or worse, that's where most people I know learned to fit in with their peers and confuse their parents. That and older siblings who were a little farther along the path toward individuation.

What would you tell a five year old about the reason for nearly content-free conversation?

Bollocks.

Jesus-shitting-Christ, calm the fuck down. Cocking hell, it's clearly just a bit of fucking about. No need to pop a bollock.

/s

I realize it's /s, but there are people who talk exactly like that, most of the time. It'd be simpler if they just said "calm down, doesn't matter."

While true, it's padding and mannerisms like that which add personality to a phrase. Works better in spoken language I think.

> Works better in spoken language I think.

And uttered by Malcolm Tucker. As a Scot, I enjoy a few well placed sweary words.

> Instead of telling the kids that these are bad words, we told them they are adult words. As in, when you are old enough you can curse all you want, but as a kid you can’t.

For some reason, I believed this when I was a kid without anyone ever telling me. That is why I never cursed as a kid and never discussed cursing with my parents.

> we told them they are adult words

Not really "adult words", we told them the truth - they are considered impolite and may cause offence. It's a question of social convention, after all.

Also, this font is clearly a bit of fun, not "an effort to censor"

I've always found it oxymoronic that "adult words" or "mature humor" are established when we are in our [pre]teens. These things typically don't have origins after coming-of-age.

Given the reference to the Scunthorpe Problem in the font's very name, it's definitely not seriously pushing this kind of censorship.

Like the idea of using this font ligature mechanism as a programming tool too. Enlightened me.

It's clear the rest of it is just joking around.

> would you ever actually do that?

Because if you don't, then swear words lose their power. And well, sometimes you need them.

IMHO swear words are strong words capable of causing impact, and which are strengthened through reserving them for when you really need them. If you swear all the time, you dilute that power. If you keep it in reserve, it retains its power to surprise. And so, somewhat ironically, the people who can swear best are those who swear least. People who swear all the time acquire a kind of linguistic impotence.

No, you can censor anything, even meaning. If censorship doesn't work, it's because you're not using enough of it.

Bullshit is a technical term...

psst..it's a joke.

a+ parenting, i will adopt this if i ever have kids.

I went the other way with my kids, greatly expanding the scope of curse words.

Words are primarily tools of cognition—that is, they are how we hold concepts and use them to reason about the world. When we use words with other people, we are relying on their reason.

Curse words are bad for human life because they don’t mean anything in most contexts they are used.

“Fuck” can mean sex, but usually it’s emoting a non-specific range of emotions (as in “fuck you” or “infuckingcredible”). Most of its meaning comes from the sound it makes—you might as well bark and purr.

The only time a curse word is acceptable is when understanding the emotional state of the speaker is necessary to understand their words, but the speaker is unable to alter their vocal tone in the required manner. Counter-intuitively, this means that curse words may have a valid use in clarifying the meaning of written text. But this is very rare.

Using this standard, all euphemisms for curse words are equivalent in terms of their damage to human thinking—darnit is just as bad as dammit. The only difference is etiquette and manners; one is considered to be much less rude.

Interesting take. Can you explain more about why you hold the opinion that sounds that are meaningless are bad for human life, to the point of being unacceptable? In my experience a good sigh or happy noise are net positives.

Curse words are bad for human life because they seem like tools of cognition, but they aren’t. When used as words, they can only confuse and mislead you.

However, sounds that aren’t words can be very useful—they are perceptual evidence that we use in our reasoning. We identify groups of perceptions by differentiating them from other perceptions, integrate them into concepts based on their similarities, and assign words to represent all of concretes of that group.

So you have many “noise” experiences from yourself and in human interactions, identify some as happy, and now you have a useful new tool of cognition in the form of “happy noise”. With additional experience, you can refine that into many sub-concepts, like “pleasurable moan”, “contented sigh”, “silly giggle”, and so forth.

Curse words are different because they are just noise. If I say “happy noise”, you know broadly what I’m referring to. But if I say the word “fuck”, you have no idea what that word means—you would have to make guesses either based on the surrounding words that have semantic meaning, or based on how I said it using your conceptual knowledge of the kinds of noises.

That’s why you see curse words used in every kind of context as undifferentiated noise.

With my kids, I tell them that using any word they don’t understand is a curse word. It hurts their own life if they make the noise of advanced words they don’t yet understand, because it introduces ambiguity into their thinking.

For more information on the role of precepts and concepts in human cognition, I suggest reading “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology”.