How to Use Harsh Language to Your Advantage and Other Communication Tips

No word is inherently evil. It’s the intent behind the word that gives it its true meaning.

Still, when someone drops F-bombs with no remorse or delivers a range of harsh synonyms for fecal matter, you can’t help but cringe.

The way we communicate matters, but so many people aren’t thinking about how they present their ideas. They fire off whatever words are on their tongue and hope it sticks. But, if we could learn to harness our language — even profanity — we’d have a powerful communication arsenal.

The Path to Deliberate Language Selection

If I start swearing with every other word in this article, your brain will shut off. You’ll stop considering me as a potential intellect (even if that consideration is currently up for debate) and you’ll find a different article to read.

But now, let’s change the situation. Instead of reading a blog post, imagine you’re in a street fight. The reason doesn’t matter, but we can agree talking polite won’t help your case. However, if you come at your opponent with an aggressive tongue, he may rethink his strategy.

There’s a time and place for the use of certain words. Church? Not a good time. Singing some Snoop Dog or Tupac? Not necessarily a bad time, unless you’re in church.

Culture has a lot to do with what language is appropriate where, but it goes deeper than that. It also captures how you should communicate. As I learned in the Army and in civilian life, every environment requires a special type of communication, and if you’re aware and deliberate in how you engage others, you’ll find your message far better received.

Lessons from the Army

I’ve spent nearly a decade as an officer in the Army. And although you hear talk of a “sailor’s mouth,” the people who created the term had never met an Infantryman.

The reason the Infantry uses a lot of rough language is because of the culture. It’s the fighting force of the nation. Drones and ships and tanks are all impressive, but it’s the Infantryman who takes the last 100 yards, closing with and destroying the enemy. Because of this, there’s a lack of filter from the men who’ve seen, and are preparing to see, it all.

This increased my tolerance for profanity 20x. It also influenced the way I spoke. I found myself having to check my tongue when I’d get home from work, surprising my wife with foul language that now flowed naturally.

From this language, however, I could tell when someone thought they were prepared for a challenge and when they weren’t. When they were, their profanity increased. They used it to psyche themselves up. It was as though they were actually “cursing” their enemy.

When they were nervous, they fell back to more innocent diction. Their demeanor changed as the challenge seemed to grow in stature. And rather than talking big, they used more acceptable language.

The level of profanity also varied by relationship. If our First Sergeant walked into a bay, no one was cursing as they spoke to him, even though he used whatever words he pleased.

Separate from what I learned through my men’s harsh dialogue was what doctrine instilled in me.

In the heat of battle, or when you’re using radios that the enemy listens in on, communications had to be brief. The Army has a long list of “brevity codes” to make everything much faster. For example, if I’m calling a medical evacuation request, if I say Alpha 1, it means I have one ambulatory patient.

The same practice is used with tactical tasks. If I told a subordinate to “seize” a hill, it means something completely different than “occupy” a hill. To someone who hasn’t read our doctrine, they sound the same. To a soldier, seize means to take an area by overwhelming force. To occupy, however, means you’re moving a friendly force to a location uncontested, meaning there’s no enemy.

This one-word difference influences what gear we take, the speed and path we travel, the amount of planning and coordinations, and the list could go on.

There’s a good reason for being deliberate and concise, and as I later learned in civilian life, both should be a priority if you want to keep someone’s attention.

Ultimate Language Lesson from the Army:

Say what you mean, mean what you say. Be as clear and concise as you can be.

Lesson from Civilian Life

As I transitioned from Army life, it didn’t take long to realize how few people talk like Infantrymen.

In fact, no one talks quite like Infantrymen in their natural habitat.

What I found in civilian life, while a lot cleaner, was filled with a lot more, well, fillers. Sounds like “um” and “ah” are rampant, even in professional conversations. It’s as though our brains are moving at 100 mph and our mouths can’t keep up. The same thing was happening in the Army, but the filler words had become far more profane.

Something else I’ve noticed from civilian life is how many interruptions take place in single engagements. In the Army, we had a rank structure. If the commander was speaking, everyone else was silent. This was largely due to respect for the position, but it was also because we wanted to hear what he had to say. Those words were going to influence everything from our mission to whether we were home for dinner.

In the civilian world, there’s much more of a battle. Everyone is fighting for attention because of some false belief that if their idea is heard first, they’re the best candidate for promotion or who knows what. Obviously, this is less often seen in organizations with good cultures, but it’s noticeable even there.

People have the curse of not being able to listen. As soon as someone shares an idea, your mind starts working in overdrive to determine what you should say next. It’s like pulling the lever on a slot machine and if you hit the combination, you start spewing out words, whether the person speaking was ready for you or not.

Because few people are actively listening, the onus is always on the speaker to become more engaging. If someone can’t capture their audience, people will politely nod throughout the conversation only to come back with questions later.

People often return with questions in the Army, but we were also expected to conduct backbriefs. Backbriefs involved subordinates restating the mission and guidance back to their leader. They’ve usually had time to look at their plan and determine what specific questions they have. So now, rather than the leader answering general questions he’s already provided information for, he’s delivering answers to things he wasn’t clear on or hadn’t offered.

If more businesses conducted backbriefs, I guarantee there’d be an increased performance across the board.

Ultimate Language Lesson from Civilian Life:

Slow down, speak clearly, and give others a chance to finish their thoughts. Use stories to capture your audience and get them more engaged.

Deliberate Communication

No matter what organization you’re in, it pays to understand the culture of communication. The businesses I’ve worked with are completely different than the military and from each other.

If you can harness the ability to effectively communicate, you’ll find yourself in a different tier of performers and quickly moving up the ranks. Be deliberate in your practice and you’ll see massive improvements throughout your life.