profanity on comp.lang.python (was Re: Pyro stability)

[Beliavsky]

Cliff Wells wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-11-06 at 18:20 -0800, Beliavsky wrote:
> > Carl J. Van Arsdall wrote:
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > > Pyro is fucking amazing and has been a great help to a couple of our projects.
> >
> > You should watch your language in a forum with thousands of readers.
>
> The LA Times had a story that claimed that 64% of U.S. citizens use the
> word "fuck" and that 74% of us have heard it in public (I'll assume the
> remainder are your fellow AOL users).  I expect extrapolating these
> results worldwide wouldn't be far off the mark (the Brits were quite
> successful at spreading this versatile word).

If this is supposed to justify using bad language in a public forum, it
is poorly reasoned. Having heard "f***" does not mean they were not
annoyed. 100% of people have seen trash on the street, but that does
not justify littering. If a group of people don't mind profanity, there
is no harm in their swearing to each other. But Usenet is read by a
wide range of people, and needlessly offending some of them is wrong.
The OP used "f******" just for emphasis. English is a rich language,
and there are better ways of doing that.