I recently started and did not finish the book "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" by Dave Eggers. It had been recommended to me by a friend as "funny and poignant," and I was looking forward to reading it. But I only got about 30 or so pages into it before I decided not to finish it. My decision was based on one reason and one reason only: Too much harsh profanity.

I'll admit that I'm more sensitive to that kind of thing than the average Joe. In fact, I pride myself on the fact that I'm sensitive--I don't want to be insensitive (or rather, desensitized). It got to the point, in this book, that even when the author wasn't using the F-bomb, I was reading on eggshells, afraid he might drop it again at any moment. It was distracting to the point that I couldn't pay close attention to the narrative.

Call me a sissy, but I'm not alone. A few months ago, the 10th Circuit ruled in favor of a University of Utah student who sued her school on religious discrimination grounds for forcing her to say blasphemous lines in her drama classes. A good friend of mine here at school is taking a trial advocacy class and is agonizing over whether, in one of their practice trials, to read aloud a powerful, profanity-laced piece of written evidence, or whether to censor it and lose the strength of his argument.

It's funny how I've always been told that swearing is a thing that less intelligent people to do in order to compensate for their limited vocabularies. Yet, in social situations here at Harvard Law School (only occasionally in class), some of the most intelligent people I've ever met also have the worst potty-mouths. And, as in the case of the aforementioned book I stopped reading, I'm almost afraid every time I try to read a late-twentieth century book. It seems using harsh profanity is essential to be a good, sophisticated writer these days. It's disappointing and frustrating to people like me.

My tolerance level does vary. For some reason, journalistic profanity (profanity quoted as spoken by other real people) is slightly less offensive than original profanity (where the speaker himself makes the decision of whether or not to swear). Profanity in the mouths of fictitious characters, while it can make them seem more like real-life potty-mouths, bugs me. "Why couldn't the author have him say something else?" I always ask. The exception to that, I guess, would be acting from a script. Though the words are someone else's (the character you're playing), it still seems just as bad as saying the words yourself. I guess that's because if you're acting as a character who commits murder, you don't actually kill someone on the stage. But if your character swears, you do actually do that--the sin is in the uttering of the words.

I realize I'm in a teeny minority on my position here, but I'm sticking to it. I respect people more who have the self-control to keep bad words out of their vocabulary. And I want to deserve that kind of respect as well. I mean, even in fictitious contexts, there's a difference between characters who swear and those who don't. (Homer does; Marge doesn't. 'Nuff said.)