I swear

[EffEmDoubleyou]

INTJmom, profanity isn't sub-intelligent lower-class drivel. COCK. See?

There's no need to drag poultry into this discussion.

 

[colmena]

Swearing is cathartic, for me. Purging the ghastly ghouls from the verbals extractor. Keeps the ticker steady, and nut free and clear for stranger thoughts.

 

[Mole]

Morale

The real problem with swearing is that it is demoralising.

Armies pay a great deal of attention to morale because they know how morale goes, they go.

This is also true of civil society.

In my society swearing is much more common among the uneducated classes. And swearing acts to keep them demoralised so they can be more easily controlled.

Swearing not only demoralises parts of society, it also demoralises the individual who swears.

The individual loses self respect when they swear.

When they swear, they are demonstrating they lack the essential element of emotional intelligence : restraint.

Those who swear are demonstrating to themselves and to society that they are emotionally unintelligent.

And oddly enough those who are uneducated take a perverse pride in being uneducated. Their perversity comes from a deep resentment of the educated, and a desire to bring the educated down to the level of the uneducated. And swearing brings us all down to the same level - swearing is egalitarian.

And unsurprisingly the emotionally unintelligent deeply resent the emotionally intelligent. The emotionally intelligent are a constant rebuke to the emotionally unintelligent.

And what better way to assert one's emotional unintelligence but by swearing. And what better way to discombombulate the emotionally intelligent but by swearing.

But the greatest victory for ressentiment comes when the educated and the emotionally intelligent can be persuaded to swear themselves.

The greatest victory for ressentiment comes when we can be persuaded to destroy our own morale.

"To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence."
- Sun Tzu.

 

[Xander]

First off, I don't want this to turn into a slanging match or whatever. I realise you have certain views upon this and I respect that. In fact if you haven't picked this up by now I'm going to hit you with three hundred water balloons with a 50/50 PVA mix.

I can’t agree with this. Almost all great works of literature have been written with absolutely no vulgarity or profanity in them.

Though perhaps in this day and age of ignorant and ill-educated people who can no longer understand the authors from hundreds of years ago, perhaps he has a point. You must use the vocabulary of the people you are speaking to. Perhaps being vulgar is part of the collective consciousness now.

Well by today's standard yes, but not by previous standards. As EffEm points out Shakespeare was quite risque in places with some choice language as was Chaucer.

I think that shows the integration of shocking to everyday.. whether that's bad or not is another matter.

I agree that that is a big reason. It’s something I think of as societal pressure. Whatever society accepts is acceptable. Whatever society rejects is rejected. Unfortunately, society seems to be spinning headlong down a flushing toilet.

Ah those bloomin moderates eh

I think the thinking goes that if something isn't immediately detrimental then rule upon it later... of course then they say they can't be arsed which kind of destroys the point no?

Just to clarify… at first I thought that “swearing” was “taking the Lord’s name in vain”, but in later posts, people seem to be referring to all swearing and vulgarity under the one umbrella of “swearing”.

Ah. Probably my mistake. I'm grouping all vulgar language as one.. I thought that taking the lord's name in vain was a profanity not swearing? Meh. Semantics.

I don’t believe so. I hope it never comes to that.

You understand the idea of tittivation don't you? I think it's that kind of effect. The problem is the sight of a woman's ankles is now not considered risque. Not much we can do about it. That's kind of why I started this. We can't halt the approach of swearing and new jargon, we can only hope to guide people to use it correctly and in agreed manners... to some extent. If it is thrown in shadow then there it will grow. Only by putting light upon it can we hope to understand and harness it... which is kinda why I alwasy wanted to know what the words meant.

I recall one incident where I got thwacked for asking what 'ruddy' meant. I was even more displeased when I found out that it only could be used for rude purposes. I mean it's not like I was trying to be smart. I'd heard the word and wondered what it meant.

I think for the most part that people are conditioned by exposure to accept whatever they are exposed to unless they are motivated for some reason to reject it.

Well this is the problem I forsee. You tell children that swearing is naughty and it becomes a sweet to be enjoyed whenever you get given the opportunity or can create one. Perhaps if it is just another boring word with proper context then it would not be so enticing?

For myself, there are certain harsh sounding words with a “K” sound in them which when said with anger make me feel threatened and frightened. The first time I ever saw “s-cks” on a forum, I had a physical reaction akin to being punched in the stomach. (That was about 8 years ago before its use was so common.)

I'm going to spend ages now working that one out. Don't tell me, it'll spoil it. Suffice to say that I shall now be saying "material foot covering" for the meanwhile

I don’t really care to listen for long to an individual whose language is full of “swearing” for no other reason than the fact that they can’t think of a less abrasive or more appropriate word.

Precisely. That's poor usage and like that I think that any word can become irritating and offensive. To me the word 'logic' is getting like that as it is so often misused and abused. 'Fact' is another one liable to bring my ire.

My family never used vulgar language or slang. My mother is a highly intelligent ISTJ who reads the encyclopedia recreationally! We were not even allowed to use the word “butt”! (We could say “fanny”, for those of you who are wondering.) I was once punished for saying the word “fart” in front of my mother.

My sister aside we're pretty proper with language. It's mostly been a source of entertainment to me as even when my father would hit his thumb with a hammer he would string together swearing in a rhythmic fashion that combined with the little jig would merely make me laugh rather than act in shock.

To this day I prefer to insult someone via more inventive uses of other words rather than use those slightly silly and rather basic and boring words so commonly spread out.

A possible factor is that my mother’s first language was French, and I assure you, in her native tongue I heard the most creative ways of being profane that a person can imagine, but only when she was enraged.

So it's okay to swear as long as you're incomprehensible? That'd be glasgow covered
It's okay to swear based upon your emotional state?

Even the most rational person fails to create rationals for swearing and yet everyone does... there's got to be something good about it no?

I see what you are saying, but I think that audience is still quite small at this point. It’s my observation that the fine distinction is lost on most people.

Au contrair! I think that in the world of comedy the man with skill to his swearing is far better liked than the brute. Take Billy Connolley for example, sure he swears a lot but with that accent and the manic stories, situations and sentiments which he portrays I think that it works most of the time. After all how can you relay someone's utter frustration without resort to such measures, unless you engage in very foppish measures of acting?

If a person has chosen to leave a certain word out of their vocabulary out of a desire to please God, or at least to not offend him, then I think it’s understandable that they would be bothered by people around them making light of something they themselves deem quite serious. Every day we do things so as to not be offensive to the people around us such as bathe and brush our teeth. Every society has their dictates.

Though I agree with the sentiment I have to wonder how many words a person can ask to be left out of conversation before they become intrusive themselves. You have a profanity filter, this allows you to operate on here with little or no requirement upon others to alter how they act... of course unless you get a thread with nothing but asterisks and then that could be problematic. If someone were to demand that all posts should be filtered for their sensibilities then I think a large backlash would be seen...

Mr. Fry is obviously about the business of breaking down the restraints.

Oh if you saw some of his work you may change your mind. He is a wordsmith first and foremost with a broad and wonderful vocabulary. Better than any other I have witnessed. It was revealed as one of his less known loves on a program that got me thinking. If a man who loved language can love "bad" language then is it really bad?

How casually does someone hear the f-word who has been a victim of rape or incest?

Context definitely rules. I've seen asian's refer to "Pakis" (not sure even how to spell that) and coloureds (#### I hate grouping by skin tone) refer to "niggers" (almost wrote Nigers then ) but a white teen doing the same is subject to harsh retorts. It's always context driven.. hence how I tend to only swear with those who I know well enough not to put my foot in it.

Words happen to be especially important to me, though I realize they mean almost nothing to others. It is those others who can’t understand or relate to my feelings who might ridicule me for thinking and feeling the way I do. There’s nothing I can do or say to make them understand.

There are none so blind as those who do not wish to see.

My sympathies.

I would say though that such is indicative of their intellect and not their vocabulary is indicative of their behaviour. My sister is a most caring person but can use such language as I disassociate myself from her.

I must confess that I am not perfect in taming my tongue, and in the past 10 years, I have used a vulgar or profane word perhaps a half dozen times because I believed the depth of my feeling would not be conveyed any other way that I could conceive of at the time.

Oh dear. Another INTJ admits to humanity. That type stereotype is really going out of the window now.

*nudge*

Oh and the cat was still funny. It was more funny because it used a swear word.... even if you didn't realise you'd sent me that one

I have noticed that if I get around people using vulgar language, I will start using it myself. So in order to prevent that, I try to limit my exposure to it, just as I do in real life.

That is your way and good on you for sticking to it.

As a parting point, do you think you'd have less problems with swearing if it were kept from straying into religious name calling and wasn't so repetetive? For example I've always loved the word (hope this doesn't ruin your reading btw) "buggeration". It's one I've never wanted to look up in fact. Just in case it ruins a wonderful word. Now is that as bad or is it better because it's more fruity than angry and less used as punctuation?

 

[Xander]

I swear a lot. It's not allowed in my household and I've never heard anyone in my family swear, so I definitely didn't pick it up at home. Curse words can add zest and emotion to conversation that nothing else can. They bypass the rational part of the brain and go straight for the emotional centers. However, if I know someone is really upset by curse words, I refrain from using them (which makes ME uncomfortable).

Strangely, I love it when people casually swear. Not at other people, and not if every other word is a curse, but if you throw a few four letter words into conversation, I'll feel much more relaxed around you. I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY, but that's how it is! Hearing other people swear makes me happy, probably because they're "breaking the rules".

You should hear me when I'm alone in my car. A traffic light turning red earns a blue streak from me!

That's something I'd not considered. I know of many people who are perturbed by the use of long words or technical words, heck anything that sounds fancy. You can call them all the names under the sun but it doesn't upset them half as much as accusing them of obfuscation. That really makes them go hostile... and they don't even know what it means!!

 

[INTJMom]

First off, I don't want this to turn into a slanging match or whatever. I realise you have certain views upon this and I respect that. In fact if you haven't picked this up by now I'm going to hit you with three hundred water balloons with a 50/50 PVA mix.

Well by today's standard yes, but not by previous standards. As EffEm points out Shakespeare was quite risque in places with some choice language as was Chaucer.

I think that shows the integration of shocking to everyday.. whether that's bad or not is another matter.

Ah those bloomin moderates eh

I think the thinking goes that if something isn't immediately detrimental then rule upon it later... of course then they say they can't be arsed which kind of destroys the point no?

Ah. Probably my mistake. I'm grouping all vulgar language as one.. I thought that taking the lord's name in vain was a profanity not swearing? Meh. Semantics.

You understand the idea of tittivation don't you? I think it's that kind of effect. The problem is the sight of a woman's ankles is now not considered risque. Not much we can do about it. That's kind of why I started this. We can't halt the approach of swearing and new jargon, we can only hope to guide people to use it correctly and in agreed manners... to some extent. If it is thrown in shadow then there it will grow. Only by putting light upon it can we hope to understand and harness it... which is kinda why I alwasy wanted to know what the words meant.

I recall one incident where I got thwacked for asking what 'ruddy' meant. I was even more displeased when I found out that it only could be used for rude purposes. I mean it's not like I was trying to be smart. I'd heard the word and wondered what it meant.

Well this is the problem I forsee. You tell children that swearing is naughty and it becomes a sweet to be enjoyed whenever you get given the opportunity or can create one. Perhaps if it is just another boring word with proper context then it would not be so enticing?
I'm going to spend ages now working that one out. Don't tell me, it'll spoil it. Suffice to say that I shall now be saying "material foot covering" for the meanwhile

Precisely. That's poor usage and like that I think that any word can become irritating and offensive. To me the word 'logic' is getting like that as it is so often misused and abused. 'Fact' is another one liable to bring my ire.

My sister aside we're pretty proper with language. It's mostly been a source of entertainment to me as even when my father would hit his thumb with a hammer he would string together swearing in a rhythmic fashion that combined with the little jig would merely make me laugh rather than act in shock.

To this day I prefer to insult someone via more inventive uses of other words rather than use those slightly silly and rather basic and boring words so commonly spread out.

So it's okay to swear as long as you're incomprehensible? That'd be glasgow covered
It's okay to swear based upon your emotional state?

Even the most rational person fails to create rationals for swearing and yet everyone does... there's got to be something good about it no?

Au contrair! I think that in the world of comedy the man with skill to his swearing is far better liked than the brute. Take Billy Connolley for example, sure he swears a lot but with that accent and the manic stories, situations and sentiments which he portrays I think that it works most of the time. After all how can you relay someone's utter frustration without resort to such measures, unless you engage in very foppish measures of acting?
Though I agree with the sentiment I have to wonder how many words a person can ask to be left out of conversation before they become intrusive themselves. You have a profanity filter, this allows you to operate on here with little or no requirement upon others to alter how they act... of course unless you get a thread with nothing but asterisks and then that could be problematic. If someone were to demand that all posts should be filtered for their sensibilities then I think a large backlash would be seen...

Oh if you saw some of his work you may change your mind. He is a wordsmith first and foremost with a broad and wonderful vocabulary. Better than any other I have witnessed. It was revealed as one of his less known loves on a program that got me thinking. If a man who loved language can love "bad" language then is it really bad?

Context definitely rules. I've seen asian's refer to "Pakis" (not sure even how to spell that) and coloureds (#### I hate grouping by skin tone) refer to "***" (almost wrote Nigers then ) but a white teen doing the same is subject to harsh retorts. It's always context driven.. hence how I tend to only swear with those who I know well enough not to put my foot in it.

There are none so blind as those who do not wish to see.

My sympathies.

I would say though that such is indicative of their intellect and not their vocabulary is indicative of their behaviour. My sister is a most caring person but can use such language as I disassociate myself from her.

Oh dear. Another INTJ admits to humanity. That type stereotype is really going out of the window now.

*nudge*

Oh and the cat was still funny. It was more funny because it used a swear word.... even if you didn't realise you'd sent me that one

That is your way and good on you for sticking to it.

As a parting point, do you think you'd have less problems with swearing if it were kept from straying into religious name calling and wasn't so repetetive? For example I've always loved the word (hope this doesn't ruin your reading btw) "buggeration". It's one I've never wanted to look up in fact. Just in case it ruins a wonderful word. Now is that as bad or is it better because it's more fruity than angry and less used as punctuation?

I like buggeration. That's a useful word.
I may start using it.

 

[GZA]

Swearing is a part of the language. I don't consider it swearing at all unless it is misused. I don't swear a lot, but I certainly do when it is applicable to the conversation. I don't even think about it, I consider it to be on the same plane as the rest of the english language.

Language describes emotions, senses, ideas, ect. There are words for all kinds of things -naturally there are words for anything we can possibly think of. Everything from babies to genocide. How can fuck or shit be offensive, unspeakable words while genocide isn't. Why, while discussing genocide, do people find it tasteless to swear? Thats pretty fucked up.

Soemtimes swearing is a powerful expresison of some emotion. If you stub your toe, it is natural to say "fuck!". If you find you have solved acomplex problem, you might joyfully yell "damn right!". Although I find most exclamations using swearing comes from soemthing negative.

Swearing creates a kind of emphasis that other words do not have. Bullshit has more emphasis and power than bullcrap. Fucked up has more emphasis than messed up.

Swearing being overused or used incorrectly is bad. When I hear people say "I fuckin jumped on the fuckin trampoline and fuckin did a fuckin backflip" and I slowly shake my head in shame. They are misusing language, so they sound stupid. Sutblty is key... "I got on the trampoline and did a fucking backflip!" sounds much better, and actually expresses the rush you got, rather than weighing the sentance down.

Swearing is also sexy. I think there is an element of sexuality to it. There is something slightly sexy about when a women swears, when done right. Maybe it's just me, but I doubt it.

I think ethnic slurs are absolutely innapropriate though. I don't believe they have any value in expression at all -they are hateful, which I don't think is the same as expressive.

I think as long as language exist, so will swearing, and as long as language has existed, swearing has bene right along side it. Always will.

 

[swordpath]

I swear here and there but I'm put off by people that use it very often. It's just not very inventive and makes you look kind of dumb and a bit classless.

 

[millerm277]

Is swearing part of the language to be used with freedom and relish?

Sure, at the appropriate times. Adds emphasis.

Is swearing intrinsically wrong?

No.

What do you think to the idea that being offended by swearing is more social responsibility than being offended by the words yourself?

Definitely. I don't get offended by swearing except when other people are using it around small children.

 

[Xander]

I think ethnic slurs are absolutely innapropriate though. I don't believe they have any value in expression at all -they are hateful, which I don't think is the same as expressive.

I think as long as language exist, so will swearing, and as long as language has existed, swearing has bene right along side it. Always will.

Slurs have existed since the situation which created them first came up. How can genocide not be offensive but something like limey can be?

Sure it's kinda dumb to group people by skin colour or some other abritrary measure, though aren't all divisions arbitrary to one degree or another?

Sometimes though it just get's silly. Doing things like banning the word "blackboard" is so obviously done by some white person who's sitting in a corner worrying about what all the minorities will say without ever actually talking to any of them. Heck soon you'll have to say "absence of white" for these people to be happy.

Like everything slurs have a place. I'd hate to see them disappear because they're interesting but similarly I'd hate to see people victimised by them, I know how that feels.

Definitely. I don't get offended by swearing except when other people are using it around small children.

Why? If the word is inoffensive then surely it matters not who hears it.

 

[Fiver]

Swearing offensive? Try using a word like "volubly" or "surfeit" in conversation and see the looks on their faces.

 

[Xander]

Swearing offensive? Try using a word like "volubly" or "surfeit" in conversation and see the looks on their faces.

Exactly. To some you just slapped them in the face with a cold wet haddock.. it's all context.

 

[IamDisplaced]

I swear myself.. *shrugs* I'm not disturbed by swearing. On the other hand, there are times when I can get aggravated by it under 'special circumstances'.

For myself, I'm more concerned with if the message has "substance" to it vs. if swearing was used to deliver the information itself. One of my INTP friends swear every other second to the point where some people do get offended (that actually makes his day), but "I" find him to be a very 'expressive' and intelligent being. I suppose, it's a matter of preference just as well as 'when and where' one decides to swear.

EDIT: fine MacGuffin! fine.. filtered lol

 

[MacGuffin]

Oooh... that won't be filtered out!

 

[Lookin4theBestNU]

I love opinion threads....got tons of 'em!

I think there is a time and place for everything. Sex is a good place. In everyday situations I don't mind an occasional sprinkle here and there. Any more then that it's like reading someone who posts in caps all the time...just plain annoying.

 

[INTJMom]

Oooh... that won't be filtered out!

No. It wasn't.
Time to unsubscribe.

 

[MacGuffin]

No. It wasn't.
Time to unsubscribe.

But I had a question!

What happens when you come across a swear word(s) unexpectedly?

 

[Jack Flak]

Oh cock, who knows? Common problem in all walks of life.

 

[Anja]

*Crows with laughter*

 

[Tallulah]

I think the most annoying thing is when people think that they're some big, special rebel because they say the f-word a lot, and they consider it a huge victory for having offended someone. I don't understand that. I understand people feeling like they're expressing themselves, but I don't understand why they get a charge out of imposing their choice on people who don't care for swearing. That sort of behavior just seems a bit immature, to me.