No Value in Profanity

[310 words] Horace Porter, a lieutenant colonel and personal secretary to General Ulysses Grant during the American Civil War, wrote about a conversation he had with the famous general one evening while they were sitting by a campfire. Porter commented, “General, it seems singular that you should have gone through all the rough and tumble of army service and frontier life, and have never been provoked into swearing. I have never heard you utter an oath.” Grant responded, “Well, somehow or other, I never learned to swear. When a boy, I seemed to have an aversion to it, and when I became a man I saw the folly of it. I have always noticed too, that swearing helps to arouse a man’s anger; and when a man flies into a passion, his adversary who keeps cool always gets the better of him. In fact, I could never see the value…