gsmokeyjoe
5 HN recommenders · recommended in 5 months, 2011–2016
2:32 · 1.2M views · Dec 6, 2007
A short clip of Stephen Fry defending swearing as a rich and essential part of the English language and rejecting the idea that it is unnecessary.
HN commenters post it in swearing and profanity debates as the best statement against taking offense at profanity.
6 comments from Hacker News
I'm rather bemused by this whole thing, I'd be intrigued to know the demographics of the people who take such, issue with use of swear words. Perhaps it's an American thing, but in Britain I'm not aware of anyone I know who'd react in hysterics at the thought of a strong word appearing in something as public as a slide deck! Swearing at someone can be extremely rude, but using such words passively to add emphasis seems perfectly normal to me. The following video sums it up nicely IMO this video
From the fucking lovely Stephen Fry "The sort of twee person who thinks swearing is in any way a sign of a lack of education or a lack of verbal interest is just a fucking lunatic." Profanity is an essential and rich part of the English language. It's really only prudes and people who need to feel morally superior have a problem with it, and they can fuck right off, frankly. this video
And as usual, any HN post that contains profanity is immediately overrun by 'offended' fuckheads that simply don't understand the joke and are offended by fuck all. Stephen Fry says it best: this video
I'm with Stephen Fry on this one: "There used to be mad, silly, prissy people who used to say swearing was a sign of a poor vocabulary. Such utter nonsense." this video
Stephen Fry, whose intellect and vocabulary are way beyond mine, on swearing. The bleeping on the second video is so deliciously germane. [1] this video [2] [LINK]