Profanity

[underacloud]

I tune my speech for the specific audience. although the Navy was a primer in obscenity, I grew into that art as an ice hockey coach: locker room talks, haranguing the refs, taunting opposing players, etc. professionally, I learned how to argue with a judge or woo a jury in the best king’s english. at home, I dislike all crudeness.

Paul said he would be all things to all people to get the message across.

I don’t think that’s the point at all. Tailoring your speech to your audience is generally not condescending, but can be respectful of the personality, upbringing, or context of the person you’re talking to. Speak eloquently to those who admire eloquence, and frankly to those who respect frankness.

Also, I think the vulgarity of language has everything to do with the meaning conveyed and little to do with the particular combination of letters. It is much worse to speak evil of someone in “gentle” terms than to encourage someone with “profanity”.

I agree with these posts.

We use language to communicate ideas, and the exact language we use will be more or less effective in different contexts. You don’t swear at a judge, but you may use some salty language when your hockey (or whatever) team is losing and needs to “fire up”. Of course, swearing for the sake of punctuating your sentence is very different to swearing in order to offend someone. The former may not be classy, but in some contexts it can be effective.

Or maybe I’m just making excuses for words I shouldn’t use at all?

 

[Fairwinds]

…
Or maybe I’m just making excuses for words I shouldn’t use at all?

watch the opening monologue of Patton, iconic Americana.

 

[Kevin12]

According to the Little Flowers of Saint Francis, a certain brother had received a vision of Christ telling him his penances and prayers were in vain, because he was predestined to damnation. Francis became aware of this and advised the brother this was a trick of the Devil. He said:

“Indeed, should the Devil say to you, ‘You are among the damned,’ you should reply by saying, “Open your mouth once more and I will [defecate] in it.’ So let this be the sign whereby you know that is is the Devil and not Christ, for if you say this to the Devil, he will surely flee.”

The word in question is much more explicit in the original Italian.

Of course, not everything in the Little Flowers is probably historical, but I don’t see it as out of character for St. Francis of Assisi, who recognized that holiness and goodness are do not always equate with superficial appearance of it, and that there might be a time and a place where such a thing is warranted.

Though some people believe that, because we live in an age that does not allegedly does not value Christian virtue, superficial displays of piety and goodness are the only ones that count for anything, I personally think Christ did well in warning us that such external shows are very likely to encourage hypocrisy and spiritual pride. But then again, there are also people who, for all purposes and intents, seem to value the words of certain saints whose opinions are close to theirs even more than the words of Christ - in both cases, we must simply use our reason to determine which opinion is the more correct and more in line with the constant teachings of the Church.