On several occasions I've written about swearing and rhetoric as well as about expletive naming. In a recent article, Emma Byrne adds to my ideas by writing about the "scientific case for calling the president a motherf*cker." Byrne especially likes the Rep. Rashida Tlaib's remark, noting that she used the swear word in rhetorically correct fashion. As Byrne writes, rhetoric reveals that this kind of language signals trust and a sense of belonging--and it also "fosters closeness and suggests a greater degree of authenticity."
Tlaib's swearing differs significantly from Trump's graphic description of sexual advances and his assault of women. While Trump's language intensifies feelings of disgust and revulsion, Tlaib's language has an instinct for the power of words and and the feelings of her colleagues and constituency. There's a sense of comeuppance in her language. It just feels good to say what she's saying about him.
One of the more intriguing insights that Byrne brings to her book on swearing is the distinction, the shit-fuck ratio, of these two swear words. "Shit" is inevitably negative, and I'm aware of only one positive use of the term, a use that I've never heard except from my Methodist Grandmother Butterworth. She was born and raised in Arkansas and settled in Western Kentucky, spending most of her life as the widowed owner of a tobacco farm. Her world was late 19th and first half of the twentieth century. She used it to refer to me when I said or did something that was "smart alecky." In a positive, and humorous comment--and with a smile--she'd call me "a little shit." I understood it as a high compliment.
"Fuck," in contrast, moves around in a much bigger world rhetorically. It can be a sign of something good or bad. As a devotee of the New Yorker, the pre-eminent forum of fiction, essays and great journalism as well as humor, it's rare to see "shit" in it's pages. But "fuck" has been thoughtfully and uniquely used for years. We don't think of "shit" as ever being "thoughtfully and uniquely used." "Fuck," in contrast, is highly metaphorical. It weaves a whole web of rhetorical connections, describing and shaping the world and our interactions to it. It's a root metaphor that telegraphs and shapes both our cognitive and emotional understanding of a specific situation or person.
But if you really want to understand the case for swearing, you'll want to read Emma Byrnes' Swearing Is Good for You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language. For this formerly constrained guy, it's a real eye-opener.