Profanity

Loosedhorse said:

My point is if profanity is generally acknowledged as the "part of the criminal vernacular", then is your use of it during a confrontation more likely to get witnesses to assume you're a criminal (or at least a co-agressor)?

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My goal is not to persuade you to use profanity; that's your choice. I defer to Lee's post. Southnarc has the background and qualifications to make these statements - he's a primary source.

If a criminal is used to profanity, it doesn't mean he tolerates the use of profanity from strangers well. Just as you created a thread based entirely on someone using profanity at you, without any violence actually occurring, profanity tends to make an impression. If you are selected by a criminal as a potential target for a violent act, considerations of "what will others think" (as opposed to what does the law say) should be a distant second or third to good strategies and tactics, meaning strategies and tactics that work.

Here's a hint...if you are "selected" it's (likely but not for certain) because you appear to be a soft target in some way. If the process of victimization has a certain amount of momentum behind it, you need to aggressively persuade the criminal otherwise. That's where profanity potentially comes in.

I find your argument to be somewhat like someone advocating carrying a "friendly looking" revolver instead of a Glock because juries frown on black guns...or for that matter, saying you'd rather not use a gun at all, because shooting people is something criminals do.

It's not what you say these days but how you say it.


Mark, esquire

It's not what you say these days but how you say it.

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Yeah, and that's a shame when content matters less than tone. I had a discussion with my wife about this recently. I would MUCH rather have dealings with an honorable man who uses foul language than I would with a guy who believes himself righteous for NEVER using foul language...yet is blind to other gaping holes in his own character.

Interesting thread....

Profanity/vulgarity can certainly be "threat indicators" in my mind. It depends on the context, tone and other specifics....

Volume and tone, without profanity, can also do the same thing.

My personal experience is that when the profanity is directed at a specific person, the volume and tone are usueally off as well.

I prefer to skip the cussing and use volume and tone for affect and having always been somewhat of a big mouth, I can usually bark out a simple "HEY!" and make people jump an inch or two.

Now just to throw a curve ball into the conversation.... people spewing out their profanities is one thing.... but when they do so in front of your very young children, it's quite another.

The unfortunate reality is that we live in a failed and very uncivil society and many situations require chosing the least bad of multiple bad choices.

I can't recall were I read it

Maybe in Post #10?

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Naw. It was in a publication that actually carried some weight, written by an individual qualified enough to make the statement meaningful.

Ghost Tracker said:

Yeah, and that's a shame when content matters less than tone. I had a discussion with my wife about this recently. I would MUCH rather have dealings with an honorable man who uses foul language than I would with a guy who believes himself righteous for NEVER using foul language...yet is blind to other gaping holes in his own character.

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+ 1


Mark, esquire

I also prefer tone and volume over "foul" language.

When directed at me, I do highten my alert sensitivity a notch or two.

A little off topic but curious how others feel... As I single man with a few lady friends and always looking to meet more, the one thing that turns me off more than anything is a women (lady) use profanity or vulgar language. If a female cannot carry out a conversation with a man (me) (that you have just met in a social setting) without a F Bomg or a GD Bomb, or some other choice words in every other sentence, then I have no interest in talking to her... as I am only interested in ladies who can speak without using "foul" language... Thats just me...

Outdoormsn1

Some thoughts on profanity:

I have been called every name you can think of, I have had every member of my family insulted beyond belief, I have had every antisocial tendency or act related to me, and have been told to go do things that defy imagination.

The ones that I worry about more are the criminal types that do none of the above.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

walking arsenal, that's verbatim from a southnarc class - that's how he teaches it.

Loosedhorse said:

might actually start a few. Not sure I need it.

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Now here you have a very valid point, to my thinking. Again that's why Craig (as cited by walking arsenal and Lee Lapin) advises not calling someone "you bleeper" but rather saying "back the bleep up."

It's still a judgment call but if someone is rapidly ingressing, it MAY buy you a few seconds. I'd rather have someone who is surprised that I'm being rude, and wishes to have a fistfight, than someone who is trying to knock me in the head by surprise.

If you start a "Monkey Dance" as Lee likes to refer to (attrib. Rory Miller I believe), that's fairly easy to maneuver your way out of, simply by giving a little bit of slack to the guy and deferring. If he says "WHAT did you just say to me?" and look angry, you can quickly say "Hey, I got scared, let's just go our separate ways buddy." The Monkey Dance is actually a fairly clearly defined event that you can talk your way out of. Criminal assault less so. Having a really refined set of verbal skills allows you to filter criminals better.

Remember, the cursing is not necessarily a first-line strategy...first you try a polite request and it's an attention-grabbing follow-up accompanied by an increase in volume. If you are yelling "BACK THE bleep UP" it's unlikely that witnesses will assume you had an equal role in any ensuing violence.

Profanity in it's self does not bother me. After all, I was a GI for 11 years. When it is directed at me personally, that is a different story. Then the alarms go off.....chris3

I like threads like this. It brings out the moral smugness.
No one is any better than someone else because they don't use profanity or as I like to refer to it as, colorful metaphors.
I don't talk bad around kids or people at work, but if it's a friend or someone I know I don't bite my tongue. You need to judge by tone and body language, not by mere words. I know all here are pro 2nd but it seems like some are anti 1st amendment.

If you believe anything anti-1A has been said in this thread, then perhaps you don't understand 1A.

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I can think of at least one post that was anti to two parts of the first amendment.

I graduated from high school testing at a 98% vocabulary level. 98% of what I don't know but by George I had 98%. Now with 33 years behind me as a factory rat I find myself using the same 6 or 7 words 98% of the time. sometimes I knit them together into one word.

However, profanity in public irritates me, if directed at me all the hairs stand up ....but a vulgarity uttered in public really grinds my bleep.

Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

A thoughtful and thought-provoking post. I never actually thought about this until I read this post.

If I have occasion to curse, something has raised my ire to a level that I would be well advised to consider...and perhaps reconsider.

From the decision in the Supreme Court case Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 1942:

"There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or "fighting" words — those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality."

There are some people who don't tolerate profanity well in the presence of their families, and I can guarantee you that certain phrases will get you noticed, and not in a good way, by other less desirable elements. Cursing to deflect an attack may do something on a less than fully committed attacker, but if he's serious IMO you're wasting your time.

This thread has been an interesting read.

I'm in the George Carlin's "7 dirty words" camp.

In business and public I keep my language clean, but in private or while working, I've been known to invent a few words.

If I'm in a confrontation, there's an absolute 100% certainty there will be some verbal shock and awe involved.

PowerG said:

Cursing to deflect an attack may do something on a less than fully committed attacker, but if he's serious IMO you're wasting your time.

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IMO, there is a little bit of oversimplification occurring here. Fights and selection for crime are dynamic and there are issues of commitment and initiative that are decided as part of the dynamic process, rather than as static or fixed variables. In fact the danger in your attitude (ranking or categorizing "attackers" or criminals as "fully committed [and] serious," or otherwise) is that you are likely to respond passively and expect very blatant cues indicating an assault. By the time you get those cues you are behind the curve...you need subtler cues, which are not black and white, to respond to. When you respond to those subtle cues you can regain initiative much faster and end the fight before it starts, or be less behind the curve.

Believe it or not there are ways you can move in one direction vs another, or say one thing vs another, and become "deselected" or deter an attacker...or at least make him pause long enough that you have time to think more about your next move.

Tom Givens says "Two what the Fs win a fight. All you have to do is make him say What the F twice..."

An interesting thread to read, especially this far into the game.
I think it was wandering far off the original track.
My take on it?
LH was approached by a pushy, overbearing salesman. When he "snubbed" the guy by not listening to his unwanted junk-mail spiel, he "insulted" the pushy salesman by not allowing him to pawn his "valuable" garbage (and hence, money out of his pocket) off on him. Result: Pushy snubbed salesman hurls a parting shot of rosy epithets at the snub-er....probably on the level of "Effing A-hole" or some variation thereof? (If I'm wrong, correct me. I wasn't there)
LH, who does not use profanity as a rule and expects others to respond in kind, took deep offense at the language being used, and feeling insulted himself, reported it to security. The perp, who realized he just shot himself in the, um, "buttocks", took off after he realized LH was calling his "I work here" bluff.
Here is where the story ends. That simple.
Just my opinion, and worth exactly what you paid for it, but I think way too many people are reading way too much into what is likely a daily occurrence for our pushy salesman friend, who is likely a broke, pathetic self-professed failure (why else would he be hawking photo packages outside a store?)
It is very likely he forgot the encounter the second he set up outside the next store, and here we are carrying on about it!
Forgive, forget, and move on.