This exactly illustrates that these words have a definite use (well, maybe not the last eff, lol). Those effings add a specific kind of emphasis. You can use them or the perfectly good word they stand in for – neither is offensive to me, both do the job.
What IS offensive is random judgmentalism because someone doesn’t personally like some particular words.
I do swear, as do my parents. My H doesn’t and once in a while he will try to corral me, which I find offensive 
. The kids always defend my right to colorful language. I’ve never heard either of my adult kids swear. It’s just who I am and I have no plans to change. Obviously, I didn’t curse in front of my children when they were little and I watch it in front of the MIL but oh boy do I &@$;( in my head when I’m with her!
ETA - I categorize myself as a friendly, affectionate swearer!
Nice article. I agree with it.
I don’t swear a ton, but more now that my kids are grown. We watch plenty of TV shows where people swear and I am not the least bit offended nor would I consider it “vulgar” (a word I can only hear in a school marm “clutching pearls” way and I’ve met many women like that in my lifetime.)
I think because I don’t swear a ton when I do swear it has a little more weight. I was trying to make a point to my D22 a few weeks ago and said something along the lines of you don’t want to flunk your classes because that will really Eff things up for you. (She’s not flunking, but was going through a hard time and had skipped some classes so I was trying to light a fire under her to get her back on track and it seemed to work. Otherwise I am probably more of a creme puff parent usually, like caving in immediately when she called 10 minutes ago for more money.)
I do like the author’s point about a shared camaraderie and lack of formality with swearing. Makes me feel like maybe I should friendly swear more!
But swearing, even without censorship or euphemism, can also be affectionately benign. To be understood this way, a listener needs to trust that the speaker is not verbally attacking but letting her guard down and signaling that the setting is informal and the relationship is friendly. Swearing in these contexts can even foster intimacy between recent acquaintances. Between people who already trust one another, it’s an excellent way to communicate affection.
In some social contexts, like at a sports match or in a bar with friends, friendly swearing is well established. What about at work? In a 2004 study, researchers recorded conversations between employees of a New Zealand soap factory and found that good-humored swearing was common between workers who knew each other well, but absent between workers who were not part of the same friend group.
Well we had to have a talk with the pre-school teacher, because younger S decided to share his word for “What begins with F Day.” He must have gotten it from somewhere (looks around innocently).
We both definitely curse. I didn’t do it much until I met H. I don’t think he did it much until he met me. Maybe we bring out the worst in each other? Usually, I reserve it for when I trip, fall, run into things, drop something on my head, break something - all of which seem to happen multiple times a day. Sometimes it bleeds over into describing my headache or an especially awful work day.
H got really bad for awhile, any little mishap would leave to long string of words -definitely overkill. I pointed it out and he swore it off altogether. He did great for about a year, and now it’s started to bleed back, but usually for the same reasons I do.
I never heard my older S curse. And not my younger S either - once he got past pre-school.
My LEO son works the overnight shift. One night a driver abruptly swerved across 4 lanes to make an exit ramp, and almost hit his police cruiser. The interesting part is that his bodycam turns on when he activates his emergency lights and siren. After he finished giving that driver a ticket he got back in his car and realized it probably captured what he said when the driver startled him. Like father, like son, he had let loose a tsunami of expletives. He went back and checked the footage. Thankfully there’s a few second lag, and all he heard of his tirade was, “…cker.”
I’m a very bad girl. I can make a sailor blush. When I was a young woman supervising a bunch of grizzly old dudes working on the assembly line, I found it necessary to talk like they did in order to get them to listen. After I left that environment, I stopped talking that way in public. However, I never completely lost my love of the feeling of release when I swore as a way to express myself. I didn’t swear around my kids or at work. But I do tend to sprinkle in some salty words in an animated conversation, and I will drop the f word when really frustrated about something. I’m not proud of it. I do worry that when I’m old and my screen of civility is full of holes, I might just be the relative that embarrasses the family.
I am fortunate that I come from, and married into, a family of swearers. My potty-mouthed self won’t ever embarrass anyone, lol!
I swear around my parents, my daughter and my husband…mostly when trying to be funny but ocassionally also in the context of “WHAT the %@#$?!” conversations (political or social)
I also swear to myself multiple times a day. I find the use of the fbomb…either in singular or a flash flood of them… to be a HUGE stress reliever.
Toward the end of my career, when I was awake enough to realize it was a work day, often that word was the first thing out of my mouth in the morning. (Flash forward even 3 years after my retirement and now the first thing I say as I fade into consciousness in and realize I dont have to go to work is almost always “Thank you”)
It really is quite pleasant to be surrounded by non-swearers. It took me a little while to adjust, but I have made the transition, as have my adult kids. I am sure the kids swear when they are back on their respective coasts, but never in their hometown. They are sensitive to surroundings and when someone might be offended by it.
I am a swearer. I come from a long line of Catholic potty mouths. My Irish Catholic mother-in-law swears like a long shore man. What’s funny is that I’m a Christian school teacher, so clearly I have the ability to not swear, but I’ll freely swear at home with my family. I don’t really consider swearing a moral failure, I guess I’m neutral about it. I have a teacher friend who has a lesson about more sophisticated insults throughout history. It’s hilarious. From the bard himself, “Away, you starvelling, you elf-skin, you dried neat’s-tongue, bull’s-pizzle, you stock-fish!” Hilarity!
@nrdsb4, Yes to the soap and the spankings. I learned to stay under the radar pretty quickly. My brother, not so much.
I find most of my cursing happens in work situations. We were all working on similar tasks and at similar levels in the organization, so we were pretty well trauma bonded. Blowing off steam was a group activity!
One of my nieces had a hard time with ‘r’ sounds when she was a toddler. So instead of saying “I need a fork…” it came out just the way you think it did.
My dad made us peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches one time. I was in 3rd grade. He was humming and chipper, and forgot his audience and called them “f-er nutter sandwiches.” The way my mom yelled out my dad’s name told me this was a VERY bad word (and it was the first time I’d heard it, so I filed that away in the vocab list percolating in my brain). 
You have to wonder how inattentive a driver is to be doing something blatantly unsafe and illegal near a police car…
Amongst people close to me, I use swear words like sprinkling parmesan cheese on your pizza. 
But at work? I have a whole encyclopedia of creative G-rated swear words & phrases to use instead.
I swear and am trying to really cut down. I am trying to be funny or stressing a point by using them. But when I hear the same from someone else it just sounds low class and vulgar. So, I’m guessing it sounds the same from me.
Someone just posted today on their FB page, apropo for this thread
■■■?? … It won’t let me post… Lol
I’m not much into swearing. Worked in big corporation and almost never heard it at work (except for the a few offshift crisis conference calls with execs who didn’t realize there were many calling in). Saw something online once with son - realized he adjusts his language to my standards when home.
My parents never swore. Somehow I picked up some swearing – especially when walking into the dishwasher or hitting my head. I see it come out in my son when he is upset. But, I worked on Wall Street for a number of years and dealt with folks whose non-parody version matched Roy Kent. There were folks who probably couldn’t get through a sentence without swearing. My son and I are pretty mild by comparison.
If you have not heard George Carlin’s “lecture” on all the uses of the fbomb you MIGHT think it’s as funny as I do–ESPECIALLY if you are a grammar geek.
Google it, but don’t press play if you’re in earshot of of folks with more class than me!
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