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[G-Flex]

Frankly I don't get any of the arguments against swearing, and in fact I don't understand why any language is 'bad'. If you remove the context and intention behind a word, then it is nothing but a particular acoustic or electromagnetic waveform.

Yes. It's unfortunate that if you're actually using it, then it isn't out of context and it means more than that. Yes, its purpose in actual language matters, but turns out that's where you use it, and turns out that words actually have particular meanings and connotations when in the context of that language.

In fact, for anyone who REALLY doesn't like the idea of someone saying a particular word which you disapprove of, how have you managed to wake up every day still wishing to exist? Every day thousands of people die in agony and misery. There are millions of people starving and struggling to survive. We wage wars on a regular basis with the only goal of stealing resources from ourselves. There are dozens of oppressive regimes in place which torture and murder their citizens. Even if we manage to survive the next few centuries, we may never leave the solar system and will get engulfed by the sun when it becomes a red giant. What about the almost certain eventuality of heat-death, where billions of years from now our descendants find themselves in a cold dying universe where energy is the most precious resource, and eventually even our most advanced technology cannot prevent the ablation and decay of all matter.

So you choose to fight for your God-given right to say "fuck" on privately owned Internet forums. You are fighting the good fight and I salute you for it.

Now, can you really say that the most offensive thing to you is someone on an internet forum saying the word 'shit' as part of an attempt to make people laugh?

I don't really think anybody is saying that, implying that, or even believes that in the slightest. Sorry!

If so, I want you to listen carefully when I say:

FUCK. THAT. SHIT.

This would be trite as hell even if you weren't ripping it straight from an XKCD punchline.


Seriously, you give the impression of an immature teenager who just figured out about the concept of the "right to free speech". Yes, there are worse things to worry about than harsh language on the Internet. However, it also makes you rather juvenile and petty to care so much about using the fuck word on a forum post that you're willing to take actual effort into ensuring that you can sneak them in in some obfuscated fashion instead of just doing what a sane person (in this case, a person not so ridiculously reliant upon cursing) would do and making the extremely minor modifications to language necessary to accommodate.

In other words: If the swearing carries such little weight, why on Earth does he care so much and why are they so necessary?

[UberNube]

Frankly I don't get any of the arguments against swearing, and in fact I don't understand why any language is 'bad'. If you remove the context and intention behind a word, then it is nothing but a particular acoustic or electromagnetic waveform.

Yes. It's unfortunate that if you're actually using it, then it isn't out of context and it means more than that. Yes, its purpose in actual language matters, but turns out that's where you use it, and turns out that words actually have particular meanings and connotations when in the context of that language.

Context isn't a boolean value. You can have positive context (such as a joke) as well as negative context (such as screaming 'fuck you' at someone). The word itself isn't offensive, it is the context which determines whether or not it is offensive.

As for the reference to XKCD, I assumed (correctly) that it would have a sufficient readership for people to actually recognise the reference. I was kind of hoping you would see the, possibly too subtle, point that XKCD is a widely respected webcomic which makes excellent use of obscenities when appropriate to add to comic effect. Next time I'll be sure to add a bibliography.

EDIT: I just noticed you wrote some content after attacking (and missing the point of) my previous statement.

Currently there is no evidence as to which of us cares more about using this language, since both of us are debating it with each other (although, I suspect you are right in that I do probably care more). I realise that this debate is pointless, but it is at least as productive as 90% of the other things people do. Every time you play computer games, you are wasting your life, but you clearly don't care about that. Why should I care more about what a waste of time it is responding to a thread on a forum which you are also responding to? Seriously, just chill out and argue against my logic rather than my identity.

[G-Flex]

As for the reference to XKCD, I assumed (correctly) that it would have a sufficient readership for people to actually recognise the reference. I was kind of hoping you would see the, possibly too subtle, point that XKCD is a widely respected webcomic which makes excellent use of obscenities when appropriate to add to comic effect. Next time I'll be sure to add a bibliography.

Okay, so it was a high-art usage of cliche, rather than a low-art usage. I understand now.


Seriously though, nobody here is even saying that profanity is always bad. Of course it has its place. Does that mean it has its place literally everywhere, or that it should be so important to us that we literally cannot bear to write anything without using it damn near constantly? Hell, if the guy's humor relies that much on profane language, and has nothing else to stand on, then that's not worth saving to begin with, and relies on the pretense that profanity is some kind of zany and special thing with intrinsic quality (positive instead of negative in this case).

You're confusing "quit complaining that you can't use profanity on a particular Internet forum because it doesn't matter much and what you say should work fine without it" with "profanity is an awful and bad thing and nobody should ever use it".

[Zrk2]

we literally cannot bear to write anything without using it damn near constantly?

I see what you did there.

[Double A]

Just so everyone knows, I don't need swears to be funny. I like being able to use them to express extreme emotion or thoughts.

What sounds like I'm more scared, "Oh crap it's a dragon! Run for your freaking lives!" or, "Oh shit it's a dragon! Run for your fucking lives!" (sidenote: if I ask a question, and then have a quote/dialogue which ends in an exclamation point at the end of the sentance, where do I put the question mark?)

[Salabasama]

...the fuck word...

Hehehe, he said the fuck-word.


Could not resist...

[G-Flex]

Just so everyone knows, I don't need swears to be funny. I like being able to use them to express extreme emotion or thoughts.

What sounds like I'm more scared, "Oh crap it's a dragon! Run for your freaking lives!" or, "Oh shit it's a dragon! Run for your fucking lives!" (sidenote: if I ask a question, and then have a quote/dialogue which ends in an exclamation point at the end of the sentance, where do I put the question mark?)

Honestly, both sound fine, although the former sounds a bit more comical and the latter sounds a bit more forced for some reason. Then again, it is a forced example.

Really, there's just not much loss either way, and trying to shoehorn in profanity in a place where (for whatever reason) it isn't welcome will just make you look silly, and not in the good way.

[Thief^]

What's the difference between shit and crap from a swearing point of view?
And what's wrong with:
"Draaaagon! Run for your lives!"

IMO profanity is best used on its own. e.g.
*looks up*
"Oh shit."
*splat*
You don't need to call everything a fucking something just because you're mildly excited.

[Kogan Loloklam]

Just so everyone knows, I don't need swears to be funny. I like being able to use them to express extreme emotion or thoughts.

What sounds like I'm more scared, "Oh crap it's a dragon! Run for your freaking lives!" or, "Oh shit it's a dragon! Run for your fucking lives!" (sidenote: if I ask a question, and then have a quote/dialogue which ends in an exclamation point at the end of the sentance, where do I put the question mark?)

How about, "A dragon! Run for your lives!"
Oh crap and freaking didn't get me to laugh. No humor.
Oh shit and fucking didn't get me to laugh. No humor.

Nothing you have posted as examples as to why profanity was needed showed any humor.

Look at the classic, the one that has some.
"Welcome to fucking boatmurdered. Hope you like miasma."
The humor as I see it, is the fact that the Dwarves by this time are so used to tragedy that they are like the Spartans. You can't affect them, and anyone who comes in is easily offended by comparison. Yours? "Ho hum, it's a dragon. Insert obligatory 10 year old panicky voice tossing expletives around." Any humor I see in it would be in the wussiness of your dwarves. That is the stance your profanity is generating.

Stop trying to force things. Let's plays become funny when there was no deliberate efforts at humor.

As for sentence structure...
http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/quotes.asp

[Dutchling]

I ind off stopped reading boatmurdered after the part with the cursing, I don't mind the cursing and everything, but it just was very repetitive and just not very interesting to read something written like that.

[Gatleos]

I ind off stopped reading boatmurdered after the part with the cursing, I don't mind the cursing and everything, but it just was very repetitive and just not very interesting to read something written like that.

StarkRavingMad only had 1* turn, the cursing isn't nearly as prevalent after that.

*Technically.

[Kogan Loloklam]

And that one line was really the only thing funny about his turn.

(Edit: And without both the turns previous and those after, it wouldn't be funny.)

[Double A]

And that one line was really the only thing funny about his turn.

I beg to differ.

[Kogan Loloklam]

Too bad, I give you no opportunity for such. I don't care how badly you need to differ!

[MantisMan]

Just so everyone knows, I don't need swears to be funny. I like being able to use them to express extreme emotion or thoughts.

What sounds like I'm more scared, "Oh crap it's a dragon! Run for your freaking lives!" or, "Oh shit it's a dragon! Run for your fucking lives!" (sidenote: if I ask a question, and then have a quote/dialogue which ends in an exclamation point at the end of the sentance, where do I put the question mark?)

In this case, the swearing is used to show panic and a loss of one's desire to adhere to all of polite society's rules. I think that showing the panic having an effect that extends to altering the grammar would have more impact. Example: "Oh SHIT! Dragon! Run! Runrunrun!"

If we state, for the sake of argument, that use of vulgarity automatically reduces the status of a statement, then I propose we also reduce the lucidity and complexity of the words used, while keeping the original meaning the same.

Or, in more normal english: I have no problem with swearing. I think those examples feel a little "off" with the rhythmic placement of "freaking" and "fucking" in their section of the sentence, but I also feel that "A dragon! Run for your lives!" really lacks dramatic impact. If this is an actual, representative sample of how your let's play is written, then I might suggest that you target your use of curses a bit more, but otherwise I don't see much of a problem with it.

Could we see what you think is a representative excerpt of your lets play so we can all dissect your work and argue about how to judge if you use too much swearing?    This seems to be turning into an argument on whether swearing is automatically nothing more than a negative thing that will make any body of work it appears in lesser for it's appearance, or if it's simply another tool of writing to be used or not used at the author's complete discretion.