Even more profanity stupidity

Here is one of the most idiotic things that I read in this discussion on swearing.

How can swearing be less accurate or whatever than the words they are replacing. How is "there was a lot of sh*t in his garage" any different from "there was a lot of stuff in his garage."? It's the same thing!

Does this guy really think that profanity cannot make a statement less accurate? This sounds like a knee-jerk rationalization to me. It's pretty obvious that using a more generic word does make the statement less accurate -- or more precisely, less specific. The two rephrasings certainly are NOT the same thing insofar as the precise meaning of the former is not as readily discerned.

As one guy responded,

You're assuming that the listener knows that "sht*=stuff" in the speaker's mind. Nothing in this phrasing automatically sugggests that, though. None of the verbiage tells you if the speaker is talking about stuff that's mildly annoying, stuff that utterly reprehensible, or just plain "stuff."

Again, I'm not arguing against the use of profanity. That's a whole nuther debate. I just think it's foolish to think that swear words are just as precise or accurate as the words they are intended to replace. They aren't, especially since the same bits of profanity are used in casual contexts, at times of mild annoyance, and in the depths of fury and hellfire.

Yet another excuse for using profanity

The following ridiculous claim was uttered in defense of using profanity.

If I don't understand what a Frenchman says to me, that means that I don't understand French, not that the Frenchman isn't being clear and effective.

One guy responded by saying,

Speaking French or a strong dialect isn't analogous to swearing in English. It's the use to which the language is put, not the language itself that counts here. Some confusion can arise when using swear words (and, indeed to many other imprecise iterations) because they often are used as 'blanket' words. 'Fuck you' is a imprecise blast, used with strong feeling to express distaste of a particular action. It would be more accurate to specify what caused that reaction. The precise response may be not as satisfying or be able to put across the strength of feeling, though.

Yet another person said,

That's a false analogy and you know it. We're not talking about situations wherein people are using unfamiliar words or grammar. Rather, we're talking about situations wherein words are used indiscriminately, thereby robbing them of their impact and the ability to accurately communicate shades of meaning and emotion.

The problem lies in the indiscriminate use of this language. If you routinely use the word "sh*t" to mean excrement, something detestable, and just plain stuff, then the word loses its impact. Far from enhancing accurate communication, it simply serves as a barrier.

This problem isn't merely limited to profanity, BTW. The problem exists even within polite language. For example, I knew a graduate student who routinely described software designs as "good." His use of the word may have been accurate, but it was imprecise. A more effective communicator would be more specific, describing the designs as elegant, or efficient, or perhaps highly maintainable. The descriptor "good" lacked those nuances of meaning, and its indiscriminate use only aggravated that problem.

That's why it's a cop-oput to say that profanity is an excellent means of communication. It's only advantageous if used sparingly. When used indiscriminately, it blurs the distinction between truly aggravating circumstances and minor annoyances -- or worse, the humdrum routines of life.

Obama coins? Commemorative plates?

They're shilling commemorative Barack Obama coins and plates on TV now. That's just insane.

Look, I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican, liberal or conservative. It's a colossally stupid move to engage in such wide-eyed adulation before the man even steps into office. Why not wait and see how well he performs before showering him with these types of accolades? That would just be prudent.

I'd say the same thing about anyone who gets elected to the Presidency. This is why I've always said that we should not erect public monuments or commemorative symbols to living politicians -- or at the very least, politicians who have not yet put in decently long terms.

Excusing profanity

I'm amazed at the lengths that some people would go to do defend profanity. I will heartily agree that profanity can be useful in communicating anger or disgust (though I don't condone its use). However, when people insist that profanity is the most effective way to communicate the depths of one's anger, or even the only way to do so, then that's just absurd. It indicates a complete lack of imagination on their part.

Consider the following exchange I saw in which this topic was debated:

Alright. So you come back from the garage upset about all the stuff in it. How would you express your anger about the situation?

One could launch a litany of insults against whoever caused the mess, or whoever created the stuff. One could wish the longest and most painful of torments on these people, their parents, and their progeny. One could describe the way one wants these people to be hung by their entrails, run through with fiery hot pokers, and forced to consume their own vomit. The list goes on.

I daresay that would be a more effective -- and far less ambiguous -- way of communicating anger than to say "This is all a bunch of sh*t!"

In discussing the use of profanity to convey anger, you said, "What else can convey that meaning?" With all due respect, I daresay that if a person cannot thinks there is no other way to convey the depths of his anger, then this is a reflection of that person's limited imagination and linguistic skill rather than any fundamental limitation of the language itself.

Preach it!

More on profanity

How about the following exchange regarding the use of profanity?

Really nothing conveys anger better than swearing.

I'm gonna have to disagree with you on those points. Since when did swearing become the ultimate means of expressing anger? If anything, I think it's the easiest way to do so -- not necessarily the most effective way. In fact, since a lot of people toss around the f-word and s-word at the drop of a hat, regardless of their emotional state, I'd say that makes profanity a decidedly less effective way of expressing anger.

Is profanity a good way to express anger? Certainly. Is it the best, the ultimate, the most effective way? Only for people who lack imagination.

Swearing gets really old

I like what somebody said about swearing and how tedious it gets to hear someone use profanity all the time:

My husband swears a lot and it's really getting old. S*t, d**n, *ss and an emphatic f**k (she dreamed!) don't bother me at all. But he CONSTANTLY uses f**ker, c**ks**ker and m*th*rf**ker. If you say c**ks**ker or m*th*rf**ker when you drop a piece of bread or burn your finger, you're tapped out. There really isn't much worse that you can say. What if you get hit by a car, or your house burns down, or someone shoots your dog? You've already used up the worst words. Believe me, I can swear like a trucker IF PROVOKED, but overusing curses just makes one sound unintelligent, like you can't think of a smart thing to say. It's like getting into a physical fight (unless you are in danger, someone is attacking you or a loved one, etc.) Gee, I really have nothing intelligent to say, I think I'll just punch this guy or say f**king c*cks**ker because my pills fell on the floor. When you swear a lot, you rob the words of their impact and you just sound like an impatient, short-fused ass. When you hear it every day, it gets old really fast.

This is my Christmas post

This is my blog entry for Christmas Day. I'm actually entering it late, but I'm dating it to December 25th anyway. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

I got to spend Christmas Eve with a delightful family. Sadly, some of the men in that family tend to be way too foul-mouthed. On top of that, I have really serious reservations about the guy that one of these ladies is dating. He's friendly enough, but he just doesn't seem like a quality guy. She could do much better if she really chose to.

Mythbusters

I liked the following comment that somebody made regarding the Discovery Channel's show, [em]Mythbusters[/em].

As far as I'm concerned, the show is good because it's one of the few where what they do is more important than how they look, what their personalities are, how smooth their dialogue is, whether they sexually desirable, whether they are cool, whether the production is slick etc. At it's peak, the show was near unique in that they showed the backroom stuff. They showed not just the slickly performed payoff at the end, but how they built their rig, the scale rigs they built to try out ideas, the fuckups, the deadends, the rigs that didn't work.

It broke out of the mould in which every show must be based slick showiness, to the exclusion of substance.

It is slowly falling back into the boring standard mould, and is getting less and less to my taste because of it.

I learned a new term

I learned a new scientific term recently: HPBMC. I was familiar with the PBMC acronym, which stands for "peripheral blood mononuclear cells." Well then, "human PBMC" is naturally abbreviated as HPBMC.

Some things should be pretty obvious. Heh.

Okay, okay. In the grand scheme of things, this is a pretty minor rant.

Lousy website design

I saw this website which had a small "search" function box in its upper right-hand corner. In the same corner, it had the following message:

Use the site's "Search Engine" located on the upper right corner, to list all content by keywords.

The designers of this site clearly had no sense of style or function. Not a lot of common sense, either. Oh, and they could use a good proofreader.

HBD, M.

Happy Birthday, Mother. Happy Birthday.

I don't want to write

I should be writing manuals tonight. I don't want to, though. I am so sick of writing.

Lousy customer service

I once ordered a pizza from this pizza joint, requesting light cheese (half as much cheese as usual). The cashier told me that it would be ready within 20 minutes, but 20 minutes later, they had not even put it into the oven yet. And when it was finally ready, the cashier tells me, "Okay, here is your pizza with EXTRA cheese. That'll be..."

I said, "Wait a minute. I asked for LESS cheese, not extra cheese. You're giving me the exact opposite of what I asked for."

"Well, will you pay for it anyway?" he asked. "We won't charge you anything extra."

I complained rather irately to the manager.

Stuff I want to do.

I'm trying to educate myself on a variety of things. This includes ancient Greek philosophy -- specifically, the work of Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. I also want to brush up on my microelectronics. I would also like to learn more about the chemistry of cryopreserved peripheral blood mononuclear cells.

What else? I need to brush up on politics and current events. I've never been good at that. I also want to read a bunch of classical novels -- or at the very least, abridged versions thereof. I like making literary references, after all.

Would love to read "Don Quixote" someday.

There just isn't enough time though, and I need my sleep.

I heard it through the Crepevine

While on a business trip, I was scouting around for a good place to eat. Normally, I would check out an inexpensive pizza place or some manner of healthy eating (e.g. Boston Market). This crepe place caught my eye though, so I checked it out.

The dining there was wonderful! Loved the potatoes, and the crepe that I ordered was very flavorful. I forget what was in it, but it had some chicken and two types of cheeses.

Hopefully, it wasn't TOO fattening. I've love to try that place again someday.

Annoying people on a plane

I’m not terribly fond of travelling, and I especially hate flying for long distances.

Today, I took a long, long flight from North Carolina to California. The woman seated to my right brought her own meal on board, and it had a pretty strong odor. Sitting beside her was rather unpleasant at the time. I suspect that she was conscious of the odor though, because she seemed to be rushing to finish her meal.

Then there was the fella seated behind me. He was snoring very loudly, and several people kept looking his way. After a while, I discreetly tried tapping his knee in order to wake him up, but that didn’t work. He did wake up eventually, but would then promptly doze back off and start snoring immediately.

He also had a kid who kept kicking the armrest on my left-hand side. I had to keep turning to him and saying "Please stop doing that."

Good grief.

US Airways charges for drinks now?!??! And snacks, too?!?!?

I discovered that US Airways now charges for meals, snacks, and drinks that they serve on their flights. They must really be trying to cut back on their expenses. I can’t really complain, since I know that the airline industry is going through some pretty severe hardships right now.

I can’t help but think about Andre, a commercial pilot that I knew. It’s a safe bet that he doesn’t earn the same kind of salary that he used to command seven years ago. What a shame.

As an aside, I could use a raise myself.

Hailing a cab

I felt annoyed and then chagrined as I tried to hail a cab recently.

While on a business trip, I called this one cab to take me to the airport for my flight back home. The dispatcher said that it would take ten minutes. Well, 15 minutes elapsed, then 20. I called the dispatcher repeatedly, but got no reply. I have a feeling that he decided to take a break, and I was pretty annoyed.

I then saw a red cab park at a nearby coffeeshop, so I noted the telephone number on the cab and called it. Their dispatcher muddled around, talking to some co-workers and trying to figure out if they had any cabs in my area. As it turned out, the cab that I saw was available, so they told me that he'd be at my spot in 30 seconds.

Just then, I got a call from the driver from the original cab company that I called. He told me that he was right there, and that he could see me standing by this tree. At that point, I was tempted to blow him off; after all, he had kept me waiting for 25+ minutes, and I had just arranged for another ride. I decided to just take this opportunity though; after all, I needed the ride.

The driver fella turned out to be this very friendly guy from Yemen. He explained that he drove by my spot earlier, but was flagged down by this woman standing nearby. He naturally assumed that she was the one who called for the cab, which explained why he was so late.

So I went from being annoyed to chagrined. I also felt bad for that other cab company that I called. It was frustrating; I finally got ahold of a dispatcher and arranged for a ride, only to find out that it wasn't necessary anymore.

I'm trying to tell you!

I was kinda short with this one taxi dispatcher recently. I don't think that my reaction was unreasonable, but perhaps I could have been more patient.

I called this cab company, telling them that I was at a Starbucks and needed a ride to the airport. For whatever reason, the dispatcher didn't get what I meant (background noise, maybe?) and asked if I needed a ride to or from the airport. I explained the situation once again.

So he asked where I was. I told him, "I'm at the Starbucks at..." at which point he interrupted, "Yes. Where??!" At that point, I was getting pretty annoyed, and so I shot back, "I'm telling you!!!" and then, in a pique of frustration, hung up on the guy.

Maybe I could have been more patient with him. I do think that he should have at least let me finish instead of interrupting me in mid-sentence, though.

I hate to travel... or rather, to fly.

I hate flying, whether for business or pleasure. I'm not afraid of flying, but I do find it annoying.

Oh, there are perks to business travel. I like getting free meals, for example. I also like being able to rack up some perks on my credit cards. And sometimes, it's nice to see new places. Still, I'd prefer to stay home.

Besides, I never really get enough time to do any sight-seeing on these trips. I blew such an opportunity a few weeks ago, when I returned my rental car way too early. Oh, well.

It would help if I had company on these trips. Going sight-seeing alone just isn't very much fun.

A strange guy at the gym

There's this very strange guy at the gym. He's ambulatory and not obviously crippled in any way. He's overweight but not morbidly obese. Still, even though he looks like he's about my age, he moves like a 75-year-old whenever he sits in on our cardio classes.

I don't know what to make of him. The instructor tells us to march forward, and he just stays in place. We're told to pump our arms into the air, and he raises his hands to the height of his shoulders. He looks like he can move normally, but when it comes to basic exercise, he acts like an old man.

Now, I don't know the whole story here, and I want to be charitable. Still, he does seem like one of those guys who just moves lazily. You know, the kind of guy who's out of shape because he always uses the smallest, least strenuous motions that he can.

It's kinda hard to escape this conclusion. There are a good number of badly overweight people who attend these classes, but even though they're in pretty bad shape, most of them still move with more energy and alacrity. Ditto for most of the elderly people who attend these classes.

In a later post, I'll talk about some of the truly inspiring people who take these cardio classes. Boy, are they impressive!

Want to try these utilities

I need to try a couple of free third-party Windows utilities sometime. I'm talking about PrimoPDF and FastStone Capture. I currently use CutePDF for PDF printing and Paint Shop Pro for advanced screen captures, but these other utilities come highly recommended by PC World.

Speaking of which, I really miss Byte magazine. Too bad it was canned years ago.