Fear and Loathing In Georgetown: Miss Self-Important Raises An Interesting Question

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Miss Self-Important said...: An Orwellian problem. I used to use profanity all the time, but after remonstrations from my father ("Why am I paying $200,000 for your education so you can write like a thug?") and one of my former professors ("I would watch the potty-mouth"), it did occur to me that profanity is usually a substitute for thinking--it's critical, but imprecise and, after frequent use, impotent. Things are not really fucking stupid if everything that's stupid is also fucking stupid.

In general, I've found that the concerted effort to avoid lapsing into profanity has led to more thought about which words are appropriate to the situation and to the search for and acquisition of more such words. Profanity is not always inappropriate, just as the "fascist" moniker is sometimes accurate, but if you call everything that is bad "fascist," then fascism stops meaning much, and the bad things go linguistically unpunished.; September 1, 2009 11:44 PM
FLG said...: Profanity, like anything, must be used in moderation.; September 2, 2009 6:55 AM