I think HN's title here is more accurate than the actual article. Do not expunge "fuck", or any other word, from your vocabulary just because it can be misused. I can misuse many words just as easily as peppering "fuck" everywhere but he doesn't seem to be arguing to get rid of anything but swears.

If you're preparing a talk like that, you should be thinking twice about everything you prepare, though, not just "F-bombs". Did you put that "fuck" there to sound edgy? Unless you're presenting to a group of 12-year-olds nobody's going to think you're edgy.

On the other hand, I love to use "fuck" to establish tone. A few judicious and well-placed "fuck"s and you can easily establish that you're just like everyone else in the room and you're essentially just chatting rather than talking down at them or anything like that. Sure, if you banned yourself from using this word you could establish the same tone via a variety of methods but, sometimes, you just need to fucking cut through the bullshit and stop pussy-footing around.