day no. 17,368: shock treatment

“What does shocking language do? One of the things it accomplishes is that it wakes people up. It brings them to their senses. It smells like burnt Marsh-wiggle.”  — Douglas Wilson, No Such Thing As Bad Words

Niceties and sweet nothings can gloss over a great deal of gross, but one bad word can burn off the fog.

"Nine times out of ten, the coarse word is the word that condemns an evil and the refined word the word that excuses it." — G. K. Chesterton 

Shocking language cannot be overused without it ceasing to be shocking. The whole point of jarring language is that it should jar. If you're always brandishing your pistols, it won't arrest anyone's attention when you wave them around (again). On the other hand, if you always have your weapon holstered, but today you draw, people understand that the situation is escalated. This is how we should be with our words. You should the necessary ones holstered, but you also must be ready to present them should the situation warrant it.

"Do not give fair names to foul sins; call them what you will, they will smell no sweeter." — Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

If you call bad things nice names, you do everyone a disservice. The sinner does not feel the need for quick repentance and resolution, the onlooker does not understand the seriousness of the situation, and the Lord is misrepresented as a moral guidance counselor whose law can be taken or left at leisure.

"Soft teaching produces hard hearts and hard teaching produces soft hearts." — Jim Wilson

Calling bad things bad names produces soft hearts for the law of the Lord. Calling bad things soft names produces hard hearts toward the law of the Lord.