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Comment by jdietrich | Hacker News Reader

I don't swear because I lack self-control. I swear because those words are powerful and useful. "Bullshit" is an immeasurably better word than any of the alternatives. Some people are entirely deserving of the label "arsehole" or "bastard".

I fundamentally distrust people who don't swear. To me it has always signalled priggishness, timidity and conformity. People who see swearing as a sign of poor education or a limited vocabulary are, in my experience, invariably petty, snobbish and bigoted.

If I want an honest opinion, I'll ask someone who isn't afraid to speak plainly. If I need someone to help me out in a difficult situation, I'll call on someone who swears like a wounded pirate - they're not going to be afraid to get their hands dirty.

We are sacks of meat that fuck and piss and shit. We always will be. If you want to pretend otherwise then good luck to you, but I don't trust you for a second.

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As someone who grew up in a home in which no one swore or used profanity, I'd argue that for me to have adopted common vulgarity from the schoolyard would've been 'conformity.' That, and I was fully capable of kicking the ass of any bully who challenged my being too 'timid' to speak inappropriately. Indeed, vulgarity from privileged white young males is a cliche of token rebellion. Or it was a generation ago--kind of like surburban white kids affecting gangsta slang today. You're dismissed.

Swearing may be honest, because you speak what you think. At the same time it may be like a fire hose. I would prefer more distilled thoughts.

One of my previous superiors sweared a lot, but when there was something to clarify the conversation took another route. I could ask him a question and then he would freeze and not even a sound would come out of his mouth. The silence could take such a while that I would start to think that maybe he haven't heared me. Then he would slowly and steadly respond - usually not needing to stop midsentence to reformulate (as I usually do). Those calm responses usually did not contain swearing. There where a few colleagues that would just not stop talking until he would respond and then he would tell them to shut up.

I swear in certain contexts, especially when I'm using a computer, and I find this statement utterly ridiculous. There are many reasons why people might prefer not to swear - how you were brought up; because you think it exhibits a certain sense of self-control; because you take delight in using circumlocutory expressions which avoid swearing (I'd be more interested, frankly, in a speaker who says "unmitigated bunkum" than one who says "bullshit"); because you work in a context in which swearing is inappropriate... To say that all of those reasons make people "priggish" or, worse, untrustworthy is just very silly.

And I'd so like to have your trust.

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