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Originally Posted by john_713
They aren't explaining themselves at all. By using an expletive you are degrading your agrument. People who use them tend to be those who have the weakest argument or the least skill at expressing themselves. They use them because they can't do any better. Of course there are exceptions and they can add an emphasis to a reply but they should never be used to explain. They can't. Makes you look like a bit of an idiot really if you use them in an intelligent discussion.
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So in order to be involved in intelligent discussion, one must degrade and abridge their vocabulary? An expletive is a word just like any other except in the sense that it generally conveys strong emotion. What's more, they are often much more versatile than other words and can be used in many different ways. The idea of bad words was created by people who didn't want to hear the strong arguments and harsh words of others. These were people who were more close-minded to language and thus quite possibly less intelligent and less passionate people than those using the words.
If you truly want "bad" words to go away, use them like there's no tomorrow. The more you use them, the less important and less vicious they become until they are essentially meaningless. But I can promise you new ones will step up and be created in their place because they are an essential part of any language.
Think of language as the family of your SO. If you dislike various members of the family enough, you either join in anyway and probably end up griping about them for the rest of your life, or you decide not to join that family. If that's the case, you might join another family, learn another language. But those same members of the family'll be there. They'll look different, sound different, but they act exactly the same. And if you decide not to join another family? You create your own language, that way you can be sure it's as "pure" as you like. But what'll you say when you slam your thumb with a hammer or the dog urinates on the rug? Whatever you decide you say, you probably wouldn't like the translation...
I don't believe expletives degrade an argument any more than does, say, your opinion differing from the other person's. If the other guy isn't willing to use certain words in his argument, you've got the upper hand on them. And they may very well decide that their argument was superior to yours because they didn't use certain words, but what sense does that make? Their argument was superior because you managed to employ quick, concise, powerful emotion and they didn't? No.
Long live fuck.