Soooo … is a Civil War brewing in Minneapolis?

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finesse said:
My main objection is that I like words too much. Falling back too easily on profanity to the point it's trite stunts figurative speech.
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That is well and good but the issue at hand is whether it is cheap amidst extreme emotion. Like when confronting the murderous henchmen of an organization that recently executed two of your community members.
 
superrific said:
Honestly I have no idea why people get worked up about "cursing." Words are words. There's nothing specially virtuous about saying freaking instead of fucking.

Personally I think people also say it for the cadence. That's certainly its main function in Tarantino films. "English, motherfucker, do you speak it?" You can't write that as "English, do you speak it" nor with a short word like "fool." It simply doesn't work. "English, dummy, do you speak it?" Nope. The line needs a beat, to let the viewer catch up with the logic. It could be any long word, rhythmically, but motherfucker has the advantage of semantic transparency -- i.e. it rarely changes the meaning of what is said. "Fucking ingrate" is semantically equivalent to ingrate, so fucking is a good modifier when you are seeking rhythm only.

It's also why those words end up in music a lot. You especially need the cadence. The song "Fucking Hostile" just doesn't work as "Hostile." Could it "pounding hostile"? Yes, but then people would wonder what the hell pounding is referring to. Just go with the meaningless cadence modifier.
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The combination of the fricative F and plosive K makes for a gratifying exclamation. I think it’s because Fuck requires more forceful exhalation than most single syllable words.
It’s also the Swiss Army knife of English. Almost never the best tool for a given job but multipurpose and readily deployed.
 
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