R-Rated Writing?
June 15, 2009 by Allison Boyer
Filed under Jobs
I’m not going to lie – I’ve been known to curse like a sailor from time to time. I work part-time at a day care, so I’m pretty good at watching my mouth when I need to do so, but when I’m just around friends…well, we all curse.
Image: sxc.hu
What about your personal blog…or even a professional blog or work for a client? Should you pepper your posts with curse words or does that make you look bad?
Personally, I think sometimes, you can get away with it.
- Does your subject cater to an audience that doesn’t mind cursing? For example, the video game audience of one of my blogs really doesn’t mind cursing.
- Do you only use cursing minimally, without the words distracting your readers from the actual content?
- Do you avoid strong curse words that offend most people?
- Do you avoid using curse words if children probably visit the blog?
- Have you made sure that your client is OK with the cursing (if someone else is paying you for the work)?
If you answered yes to all of the above questions, I think a curse word or two here and there can be effective for some blogs. It isn’t just blogs, either. Sometimes a few curse words in article work, ebooks, etc. can also work well, depending on the subject matter. Keep in mind, though, that there will always be some people who aren’t on board with the use of curse words. If they make up the bulk of your readership, you probably shouldn’t use curse words at all.
Do you use curse words in your writing?
It’s one of those things where I think, if you have to stop and think about it that much, then the answer is probably no, it’s not alright (in a professional context).
On the rare occasion it can be an effective mechanism for hammering a point home, but you’d have to pick those times judiciously.
That being said, you can get into a bit of cross-cultural mishaps. For instance, the words “bloody” and “hell” are not really considered swear words here in Australia, but I believe are in the US.
With the recent displays of poor judgement at some recent Flash and Ruby conferences in the use of sexually explicit content or behaviour in presentations, this is probably a timely topic.
Funny anecdote: We had this neighbouring cat that would come over and hang around my office window and terrorise our cats. I was on the phone with a client when this cat made an appearance, and without thinking I stood up, banged on the window and yelled, “Piss off!”
Fortunately it was a client who knew me pretty well and so was caching himself laughing instead of being offended, and laughed even harder when I told him what was going on.
I won’t tell you about the windstorm I created when I used the word “mastication” in church…
I drop F-Bombs, S-Bombs, C-Bombs, and say just about anything I feel like it on my blog. If the readers don’t like it, Fuggem!