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.
