As you can likely tell by the title to this post, it is Tactlessly Correct essay time. The subject of today's conversation is profanity and the misperception that camouflaging profanity allows us to discuss it in a non-profane manner.

Take the title for example. When you read it you did not interpret it as F!Bomb you, you fcuking f*ck!. You interpreted it as Fuck you, you fucking fuck! That is of course what my intent was. So what did I accomplish by obscuring the actual words? Well, I made it a bit clunky for the reader. It adds another level of forced interpretation so it takes a short bit longer to read. If the reader is not familiar with F!Bomb then I've added a confusing element where the message will not be understood until yet another level of interpretation is completed.

Look, language is all about interpretation. If i say F-word what I mean is fuck and what you understand is fuck so why would I say F-word at all? Because it's more polite? Whatever we're discussing it has something to do with fucking so it's not going to be targetted towards delicate sensibilities, right? Generally speaking people use these occluded words for one of two reasons. The first is to hide their vulgarity. They cloak their profanity in a camouflage of special characters, close misspellings and pseudo-cusses. They do it in an attempt to hold some moral high ground, swearing for effect but not getting stained by using the actual naughty words. Bull fucking shit, y'all. That's called trying to have your cake and eat it too. If you think you're getting away with anything here then you're only fooling yourself. 'Fess up or fuck off but that shit don't fly.

The other reason people will use these is to titilate themselves and others. "Did you hear what Bobby said? He said the 'F-word'! Tee hee hee." The near curse is used to relate exactly what a 3rd party said while once again giving the speaker some presumed moral high ground. Not fucking likely. There's no moral high ground awarded for childish behavior like that. You want moral high ground, use grown-up non-cuss words like "profanity" and "vulgarity" to describe what Bobby did.

This isn't just about fuck, though that's the most common one we see. It's the same for the N-word nigger, cutn cunt, c*ck cock, pr0n porn and all the rest. Some of these are incredibly foul. Nigger and cunt are particularly reprehensible. I don't use either one in pleasant conversation nor do I converse with people who use them casually and it fucking pisses me off that people get a "Get Out of Asshole Status Free" card for using them through euphamism or changing a single damned letter. That shit doesn't fly with me and it doesn't fly with any intelligent reader either, even if they aren't conciously acknowledging it.

For my part I pledge that this Tactlessly Correct blog will be free of these immitation swear words. When I want to say fuck I'm going to say fuck. When I don't want to say fuck I won't. I hold my readers in enough respect that I will not play stupid PC wordgames with them.

Ah...fuck it.

Posted by: Jim at 02:38 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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