Ok ok ok, NOT because the holy prophetsword gave me a thumbs down. But because it probably needs to be toned down, I'll not cuss as much in my articles. You just get carried away you know?

It depends. It doesn't seem to be an tide of people against you (nobody else complains about it).




So I think it's a question of style in the case of this person's reaction. Are you going to keep cursing because you like to do it and you feel it adds to your writing? Or will you change it because you want to have more appeal and not offend people? Or, option 3, will you work on your style so that your swearing is still present but not "useless" as prophetsword calls it?

There is cursing with abandon and there is cursing with thought behind it, used for emphasis or humor or a turn of phrase or to be transgressive...many good reasons to do it in various situations. Flipside, some people just don't fucking like cursing at all, while some appreciate it if done well but not when done poorly. Prohetsword's criticism of your article, while vehement, appears (to me) to be in the latter camp.

I don't see the curse words there really add anything. It doesn't rub me the wrong way but on that point I agree with prophetsword. They don't make your writing, in this case, more funny or interesting. And when writing or editing, in all cases, good policy is to make sure every word is important and remove any that are not.
If you want to curse a lot to truly entertaining effect, I'd say listen to Richard Pryor and George Carlin, and understand when they curse, and why.

Clearest example here: "Well do you remember those fucking walls?" This is cursing with abandon. It makes no sense, there is no reason for "fucking" to be there. It sounds angry but that doesn't seem to be the intended tone of that sentence at all. Later in the paragraph I could see it, although you already put in a "damnit".

I would have liked to read more about 'how to put cheese on the worst way', and the conspiracy. Draw those out into a paragraph each, could be very good. I bet the cheese stuff could use a "goddamned" or a "shit". I plain don't understand the line about "goddamnned communist lathes".

Basically, I write for entertainment purposes. However it would seem that I do get carried away by cussing from time to time. I'll be the first to admit, there's no point to it. So yes, in a sense it is entirely useless. But the thing to understand is, I don't put a lot of time into these articles. It seems funny at the time to cuss and do. Do I think it's going to be funny to anyone else? Probably not. Does it add to the article? Absolutely not.

On the other side, prophetsword (I think) took offense to my using god damn more than once in an article about Subway. He's either really into god or really into subway. Now let's be clear, I have no moral objections about cussing. And I'm only marginally worried about offending people on the internet.

But what it all boils down to, cursing doesn't really enhance my articles. I put it in there to get into "rant mode", because let's face it. It's hard to get that angry at how restaurants used to be and shitty toys from the 90's.

Although quite frankly, i think the pictures i posted after his comment were pure gold. I remember laughing out loud when I put Stallone on there.

And I have no clue what I meant by goddamnned communist lathes.

So you don't give a rat's ass one way or the other, why care what somebody says in the comments?

I didn't necessarily say that.

"useless profanity"? that's a new one...

Yeah unless you're Dennis Leary, dropping the f bomb more than once sorts of detracts from your writing. The articles take us back in time, and hearing a swear kind of breaks the trance y'know?

On that note, I might try my hand at another article. Even though the site messed up all my old ones maybe I can work some magic with the new layout.

I was wondering what your old articles looked like. Considering you wrote an article on making articles. (side note)
I did visit retrojunk circa 2003 on wayback machine. I'm doing an article on retro websites and went there just for fun.

I enjoy the "colorful" language in your articles you use it in a funny way and it does, for me add to the humor of the writing Prophetsword is doing what every prudish christian tries to do and thats ruin a good thing that others enjoy because they can't just ignore it and mind there own business. Keep posting the articles and I'll keep reading them (with profanity and all) Good fucking luck!!

I think you're confusing me with Knites haha.

Oh, but didn't you write the highest rated article here? "The day I went crazy"

Oh yeah, that's me. Though it wasn't about writing an article.

he's probably talking about mine. which i shouldn't have even written after mentioning retrojerk as being an example of critiquing harshly

http://www.retrojunk.com/content/article/10157/index/

This is the Knites article
http://www.retrojunk.com/content/article/7738/index/

I can't even read the articles here any more. Not even that one, which I've read before and enjoyed. The formatting of the page basically sucks now.

sure sounds that way to me

Not putting a lot of time into something and not giving a rat's ass about it are two different things. I care about my articles in the sense that someone who has too many cats cares about their neighbor's dog.

You wish they would just go away?

http://www.fanfiction.net/tv/Step-by-Step/

um. ok?

uh, anyway, gotta say man, your recent articles are quite good. I don't agree with everything you say but you still keep it entertaining and funny. And the cursing feels a lot more natural than it did in the Subway article (to me). Good job!