In Praise of Profanity

When President Obama signed the affordable health care act in 2009, the Vice President was overheard to utter an enthusiastic "This is a big f****** deal!" A town in Massachusetts levies $20 fines on swearing in public. Nothing is as paradoxical as our attitude toward swearing and "bad language": how can we judge profanity so harshly in principle, yet use it so frequently in practice? Though profanity is more acceptable today than ever, it is still labeled as rude, or at best tolerable only...