[Articulating Your Emotional Smut: A General Guideline to Internet Profanity in Writing Personal Journal]
by YBLalat

Navigating the Web is a great way to kill time beneficially. Pages and pages of information, opinions and new ideas are waiting to be discovered by the likes of people like you and me, young and old, married and single, day and night. Some are just plain explanatory, filled with text and graphics, while some require more effort in comprehending, ridden with analogy and sarcasm. Some are based solely on scientific facts and journalistic reports; thus are a reliable reading and trustworthy source while uncased emotions and opinionated-convictions drive some pages. The latter kind of pages is the main concern of this report, dealing with the known fact that most authors of such pages are always using obscene words to convey their anger or disgust to the topic in focus.

Personally, I roam the global highway in search of entertaining personal journals of other living souls almost every God-given chance. They are the jewels of online voyeurism. Nothing beats the joy and amusement of reading other people’s diary. Being that the author is often a stranger makes it a better experience for the readers. Imagination will always accompany them as they try to picture the situation using just words given on the journal. But the frequent presence of the F word, for example, in a personal journal often makes it disturbing for the readers to understand the author’s intent of storytelling. Readers of varied background and upbringing react differently to profanity and the state that sometimes they know somewhat a bit of the author’s details creates a response that is even more complicated.

First of all, there is nothing wrong with being emotionally expressive in your own journal. Simple words alone could not shape emotions effectively and messages which are opinion-based are always hard to be conveyed in mere neutral statements. The usage of obscene words are justified this way but the main concern here is the tolerance and level of articulation when using four-letter words. The effect of going overboard and crossing this level of mediocrity in personal anger articulation is detrimental. Such an act of vulgarism is reflective of the author’s virtue. In addition to that, authors are customarily fooled by the initial intensity of their feelings, as when these vehemence start to subside, all that is wrong at first will later be seen as correct or mildly detesting and vice versa. When this moment arises, all that is left haunting is the everlasting sense of regret and shame. In both cases, don’t such backfires toil to tell the authors that all this smut is unessential?

That is why the world is governed by strict codes of ethics and protocols derived or simply taken verbatim from the books of law and transcripts of religion. Did you know that there is a US law regulating the Web that touches the irresponsible usage of unnecessary smut? An urban legend stand-up comedian named George Carlin initiated the law by performing his act on a live broadcasting radio session in 1973 at New York. His apathetic boldness created a media and political frenzy that ultimately gave birth to a Federal Communications Commission’s law that is popularly known as the Seven Dirty Words. This act is the first of its kind and the FCC is recognized to be very rigid in upholding its codes of media conduct. However, the enforcement of the profanity-unfriendly act is rather meek on the Internet, as it is a vastly growing space of global interaction that is virtually impossible to patrol.

I wish I could tell you these seven words right here, right now. But I fear the trampling treads of the well-suited officials of the FCC racing towards my house, knocking on my door. They would cuff me and fine me a handsome fee of US$250000 and even sentence me a prison term for that. However, it is vital for you to know them as to not use them (again) later in your journals. I strongly believe that since I am the one who is given the knowledge first of this issue by the Almighty, it is my sole responsibility to make sure that you know and understand them. In a weakly disguised technique of stealth interchange that I have devised, here they are:
1 – Sigma Hector Indigo Theta
2 – Pico Indigo Sigma Sigma
3 – Fargo Ultra Color Kappa
4 – Color Ultra Nano Theta
5 – Color Orange Color Kappa Sigma Ultra Color Kappa Enigma Rodeo
6 – Maroon Orange Theta Hector Enigma Rodeo Fargo Ultra Color Kappa
7 – Theta Indigo Theta Sigma

Now that you have learned of the truth and are aware of its possible adverse consequences if you ever violate that law, let us pledge to try our best to change from our former effusive selves for the benefit of good. Here are my own proposals as to how we could achieve this goal of a more civilized smut expression:
1 – Use delicate synonyms to replace the swear words. Example: use ‘dung’ instead of the S word.
2 – Create your own swear words. Example: the MN Daily’s Network column uses ‘cram’ to replace the F word.
3 – Talk like Ned Flanders from the TV series the Simpsons. Example: "Pretty darn doodily-diddily...good" or "Oh mydiddily-eye!"
4 – Use a dialect-variation of the same word. Example: British’s ‘shite’ or Australian’s ‘crikey’.
5 – Use vegetables, food and smelly body parts. Example: ‘Armpit-licker’ or ‘Fruitcake’ or ‘Tomatohead’.
6 – If you know a third or a foreign language, then use that knowledge. Be careful, however, in using profanity in another medium because we might never know if there are others who could understand the same language.
7 -- Type actions into your entry instead of verbalizing it. Example: "He was a [pulls out middle finger] idiot!"
8 – Talk politely even if you are angry or disgusted. This is the most proper way to battle profanity.

Personally, I think that those who use swear words to uphold a point or even simply to narrate a piece of emotion are actually lacking in the verbal/writing ability of the language. Being that the F word for example is so versatile in its usage in the English language that it could be used as an adjective, a verb, an adverb, a noun and a transition, makes it the easiest and most frequent smut used. Such author, who repeatedly utilizes the F word in a work, is subconsciously confessing to the readers that he or she knows of no other word or has a very poor vocabulary. Basically, he or she is essentially a weak authority in expressing an opinion, until that relying upon the shock value of curse and jeer words becomes an unavoidable option in writing.

Finally, always remember that, as we promised to improve others and ourselves, there are infinitely other ways that we could channel our feelings and rage. Utilize emotions and observations only to the desired effects of revelation and enlightenment, not just to inform and share. Do not trivialize your readers' intelligence. Keep them interested for newer materials. Be creative and different. Implement changes and imagination to a varied presentation of your ideas. Strive for diversity. As the great philosopher and poet Ralph W Emerson once wrote, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblins of little minds."