I curse like a sailor, even though I'm consciously aware that it’s an unhelpful, unprofessional, unarticulated form of communication.
As someone once eloquently put it, trying to negotiate a compromise or agreement with someone without signalling that strong emotions are involved is a form of self censorship that is self-destructive. If the person you're talking to doesn't know how you feel about something why would they ever honor your concerns?
At about the same time I read this I was trying to reject the notion that there are magic words that can force other people into an emotional state. Why do we let other people control how we feel? That's bullshit. I am my own person and unless we're discussing a matter of public policy (you are denigrating an entire group of people on purpose or through carelessness), if what you say upsets me then that's my baggage, not yours. It would be nice if you were sympathetic, but that power dynamic needs to be broken, and pretending it doesn't exist by censoring yourself makes you an Enabler, in the language of Codependency.
It took me another ten years to realize that I still get emotionally hooked on other people's mostly innocuous word use. It's the basis of marketing and persuasive speaking, and in many ways the person swearing is being far, far more up front and honest with you about what they're trying to do to your head.
Swearing is only unarticulate if you saturate your speech with it.
As for the unprofessional part, that's got its edge-cases as well. I used to work in support for an agricultural telemetry company, and the primary clients were farmers. They'd call up with a problem, and usually they'd swear as part of their normal speech. I found that if I wasn't responding in kind, it would sometimes make the client self-conscious and make the trouble-shooting harder. So, torn between being professional and being pragmatic, my solution was to swear one 'step' less than the client. If they said 'shit', I didn't swear at all. If they were saying 'fuck', I would go as far as 'shit'. If they were saying 'cunt', I'd go to 'fuck'. It worked quite well, and removed a barrier to building that rapport need to work support efficiently.
If all you do is curse and never explain an idea, then it is simply a defense mechanism to not knowing what you're talking about. But, cursing is a great to way provide extra emotion to a topic. "The user experience is bad" vs. "The user experience is shit" does add value. But use shit, and if you add steaming pile on there really conveys that it is not just bad, but worse than bad.
now, whenever i speak/write english, i swear like a sailor. feels more natural to curse in english.
It's not uncommon to hear variations of english swear words in my language.. even printed in the newspaper or children's books.. nobody thinks twice about it.. but our native swear words take on a different tone and meaning altogether.
Maybe this could contribute to why it's easier to swear in english? (the words not holding the same type of gravity/meaning)
Swear words don't come naturally to me in English though, so they don't get an occasion to be said at all.
I wish I could find it again -- I'd surely understand it better now.
P.S. Pinker has several video lectures on his website and one of them might have this demonstration.
It _seemed_ to also be a turnoff when dating (and interviewing?), limiting the field. Not 100% sure.
Studies from people with different types of aphasia have delineated different brain regions that regulate different aspects of communication. Wernicke’s area is like a dictionary: it helps us to understand the meanings of the words we hear and to choose the words we want to use in a particular context. People with damage to this area can’t understand language, yet they can pronounce words and assemble sentences—it’s just that the sentences they come up with don’t make any sense. Broca’s area is in charge of producing sounds; people with damage to this area have trouble articulating words and sentences.
But both Wernicke’s aphasics and Broca’s aphasics, and even global aphasics, can swear. These swear words are coming from somewhere else in the brain, not the parts known to be responsible for generating the rest of language.
Any age, just don't let your parents hear you. It was a hilarious and harmless way to blow off steam when we were in kidergarten to swear like truckers.
> If I'm out at a restaurant with my "brogrammer" friends, and a mom with kids is at the next table, is swearing inconsiderate, or OK?
It's inconsiderate.
