The excessive use of "fuck" and "shit" throughout the entire article really takes away from its message. It just seems very immature. It's hard for me to take it seriously when it sounds like it was written by an angsty teenager who's trying to look tough in front of his friends, or something like that.
Honestly, I think it speaks more to your maturity that you are so bothered that people are bothered by profanity.
In all seriousness though, profanity is unprofessional. I think a fair definition of profanity is 'vulgar extreme emotion.' If you have to use 'extreme emotion' to get your point across, then you aren't doing it right. You should be able to describe something or explain something with some sort of levelheadedness. On to the 'vulgar' part. We can fairly say that some people could care less about vulgarity and others are bothered by it. So why put it in in the first place? I'm not saying we all have to be ultra politically correct, but if I'm giving a speech on the free market, I'm not going to insert snide comments about liberal politicians and their economic beliefs. I could, it might even make sense in context, but there's no reason to.
That I can agree with. It is signals more of a casual tone than a professional tone.
Why should someone use a casual tone instead of a professional tone? Why not? It is nothing more than individual preference. Write in the style you feel most comfortable with.
("Honestly, I think it speaks more to your maturity that you are so bothered that people are bothered by profanity."
That he is bothered is not what makes me think he lacks maturity. That he is bothered to such a degree that he thinks those particular words actually devalue the article itself is what I think signals immaturity. The ability to separate ones emotional response to something from their intellectual appreciation of something is a hallmark of maturity.)
I don't take offense to the words that were used. It's more akin to articles that use absurd fonts or blatantly poor color schemes. Such things are unnecessary, and make it more awkward to absorb the actual content.
When I see authors doing things that obviously make their work harder to read, it does make me question their judgment, which in turn makes me question the validity of what is being expressed.
I pretty much agree with you, though it certainly depends on the context (I'm more likely to not be bothered by it in a post on a mailing list). But for a technical writeup? You want to be treated like a professional, write like one.
To be clear, I am not criticizing you for finding certain words to be offensive or thinking that they are offensive words. I am criticizing you for questioning the validity of the article because the author used certain words that you find/think are offensive.
Your entitled to your opinion. The author is entitled one as well. What you think about his style of writing does not matter. Expletives are not immature, you just view them as such. Again, that is fine and is your choice. There are (very few) people (in this thread who) agree with your view. There are over 25 comments actually discussing the article instead singling out of individual words to focus on. According to you, since there other people discussing the article and not caring about the sparse use of swear words they too must be immature.
Here is my opinion: it is more annoying to see people like you complain about the "excessive" use of "fuck" and "shit" every time an article is posted that contains "fuck," "shit," or something similar.
Absolutely. What baffles me is in the defense of the use of profanity in this article/talk? Perhaps he had sized up his audience and had determined that those he was talking to could only absorb the message if it were dumbed down a bit?
"Using profanity" and "dumbed down" have basically nothing to do with one another. I've read very intelligent things with lots of expletives, and incredibly simplistic things with none.
Why are you baffled by the fact that some people defend the author's use of profanity? Surely the fact that some people simply aren't bothered by profanity isn't news to you?
Sorry to say, if the article is good enough, I don't care who wrote it - immature or not. If I could learn something from a 13 year old kid, I would love to. In Europe "fuck" and "shit" are anyway not considered offensive at all (at least in the countries, where English is not the first language).
