With increasing social acceptance of profanity in everyday life, combined with our current generation’s relative immorality compared to older generations, it will be useful to discuss how acceptable the use of profanity is in The Writing Center. Is profanity a useful tool for relating feelings, ideas, and beliefs, or, rather, is it evidence of an underdeveloped vocabulary as many of our parents’ generation would say? Can profanity be used effectively to ‘break the ice’ and develop rapport with a writer?
Profanity has the potential—if used carefully and strategically—to help build rapport with writers in face-to-face appointments. While The Writing Center’s atmosphere may feel quite comfortable and laid back to tutors, the atmosphere may feel quite different for others. It might be too academic for many writers to feel comfortable, something I experienced during my first writing center appointment as a writer. Profanity has the potential to effectively break this academic fog—to break through it with unrestrained emotion and feeling; that is one power of profanity—the acute feeling and meaning behind each swear.
But where’s the line? Obviously, tutors shouldn’t swear in every sentence; overuse of profanity destroys its meaning and emotion. In The Writing Center, profanity should be used sparingly and strategically when speaking with a writer. It should never be used in addressing someone or their writing. There is and needs to be a level of respect when referencing people and their work.
Certainly, there are worse swear words than others, with some likely not appropriate in any circumstance, especially in a writing center. Thus, some profanity should be avoided altogether within the writing center, but how is this decided? Again, where’s the line? I would contend that some of the most common swear words can be strategically used to effectively build rapport with a writer.
An easy way to determine how much profanity, the type of profanity, and the conversational context in which it is appropriate would be to take notice how you use profanity every day, outside of the Writing Center. The amount of and how you use profanity in everyday situations might help inform your choices of how and when it should be used in The Writing Center. Another useful measure could be how often the writer uses profanity within an appointment. It is very likely that they won’t use profanity at all given the academic atmosphere within the Writing Center. That’s all good—feel free to use profanity selectively in a respectful manner. If a writer uses profanity themselves, that would likely be a good indicator that use of profanity yourself is permitted and welcome. But, as with nearly everything, be aware of the context their profanity is used, and tailor your use of profanity in a similar manner to theirs.
As with everything and anything that concerns conversation, the use of words, etc., be aware of the context, both situational and conversational, that profanity is used. This is what I mean by ‘strategic’ use of profanity. With due attention paid to this, there should be no problem using profanity within The Writing Center. The use of profanity within the writing center is and will never be static; it will always be shaped and controlled by those tutors and writers who choose to use it. With this said, what do you think about the use of profanity in the Writing Center?