Meandering Musings: Profanity

I still don't have a great picture for these Meandering Musings entries, so here is a picture of a hippo. It kinda looks like it's talking, so I hope that suffices.

So, if you've been following me for awhile, or maybe if you've only just read through a couple of my writings, you may have noticed something. I almost never swear; even when writing the dialogue for other characters, it's a rather rare occurrence, and I usually default to lighter swear words. One would be close to the truth if you thought this was because I was an uptight Christian running only the most Christian of Minecraft servers, but that really only covers part of the truth. Yes, one reason I don't swear because it would go against my conscience to do so. But I also really don't care if other people swear, and I regularly consume content filled with profanity.

So how do I deal with this cognitive dissonance, you may ask? Well, simply put, I support people using words as they see fit. If they want to swear, I'm fine with it. At the same time, I prefer not to swear, as I believe it waters down my language rather than enhancing it. I choose the words I say, and that happens to exclude swear words the vast majority of the time.

Generally, I recommend people tone down on profanity, but only partially because it is offensive to some people(at a very pragmatic level, using language that is more palatable to more people can make you more marketable, and a large part of our ability to succeed in life is based on social networking.). The better argument, though, is that profanity can easily become conversational filler. Drop an f bomb, and what has it really added? If you drop one or two it might add some much needed emphasis, but if they are being dropped in every other sentence, they just increase your word count while not emphasizing much of anything. After all, if everything is emphasized, nothing is.

I believe we have too many people exaggerating things to extreme degrees in everything they say(yes, this is a bit of an exaggeration in itself). There is a time and place for hyperbole and emotional responses, but a level headed approach to topics can many times be more constructive. Similar to how constantly saying "like", "um", and "y'know?" in sentences makes you sound less credible, swearing constantly can do the same thing, even if you are indeed a very intelligent person underneath all the profanity. That's all I'm trying to say; words have power, and just like solid editing makes a book better, a little self control over how you speak can completely change how people perceive you through your language.

All that said, I still don't care if people continue swearing, nor do I think less of them because of it. Some people have just always talked like that, and it would be presumptuous of me to suggest they should speak differently. I just think people would benefit from choosing their words a bit more carefully, and understanding that there might be unintended side effects from how they speak.