Profanity

G

goldenboy

Scooby
Joined
Feb 17, 2005
Messages
2,497
So you guys, I noticed new poll results just out concerning profanity (in America):

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&n....nwsource.com/lifestyle/264632_profane29.html

Do you swear a lot? At all? I rarely if ever swear in conversation. I'll swear under my breath to myself"”in traffic, if I'm annoyed by a co-worker, whatever. I'm somewhat prudish and I tend not to want to call attention to myself. Casual, conversational cussing often annoys me. It can feel cheap, disrespectful. Swearing in real anger, when it's "justified" feels less bothersome. I'll swear on threads (in a self-censored, abbreviated way) to stress a point...

I notice a little swearing on this site. Nothing really excessive. The most profane, vulgar talkback threads I've ever seen are probably on the AintItCoolNews site.

Watching a contemporary movie with my parents can get really uncomfortable, depressing somehow. At the same time, swearing in fiction, some movies often feels right, feels real to me. The cussword replacements on broadcast TV often feel off...the impact is lessened, or it's actually distracting, takes you out of the moment. Yet, artfully avoiding profanity can result in some really creative insults, comedy.

I'd suppose there are personal, cultural, generational issues involved here. Do you notice public profanity increasing? Decreasing? Whadaya think?

Younger people admit to using bad language more often than older people; they also encounter it more and are less bothered by it. The AP-Ipsos poll showed that 62 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds acknowledged swearing in conversation at least a few times a week, compared to 39 percent of those 35 and older.

More women than men said they encounter people swearing more now than 20 years ago -- 75 percent, compared to 60 percent. Also, more women said they were bothered by profanity -- 74 percent at least some of the time -- than men (60 percent). And more men admitted to swearing: 54 percent at least a few times a week, compared to 39 percent of women.

Wondering specifically about the F-word? (For the record, we needed special dispensation from our bosses just to say "F-word.") Thirty-two percent of men said they used it at least a few times a week, compared to 23 percent of women.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/lifestyle/264632_profane29.html
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For me it's place and time sensitive.

Like at one time bar-folk might say s'nails, meaning Christ's nails or the nails used to pin Christ to the cross. You could say that anywhere now, and in certain pedantic, even high society groupings it might even be considered clever.

Damn and Hell were considered taboo once, but you can say them anywere now. In fact today religious cursing seems pretty much acceptable, but there's new politically incorrect words you're supposed to avoid The n word can make even Jay Lo unpopular. References to someone's sexual orientation is considered uncool in a lot of places. You can refer to male genitalia, but not female. I don't know why.

There's places and times when I would feel almost required to cuss without borders, and excessively. There's other places and times where if I hear any kind of excessive cussing, I have a negative opinion of the one doing it.
 
Very good point about the PC factor. There are newly taboo words related sex, race...that stuff evolves constantly, seems like. It's related to politics, power struggles, etc...

And you're right about "blasphemous" terms, religiously-based cussing. My mom would be upset, heh. But people generally don't bat an eye about that anymore.

For me, it also relates to familiarity. If you're among friends, it's one thing. If you're among strangers, acquaintences...it's presumptuous to assume you're all on the same wavelength, right off the bat.
 
i try not to curse. it's just a thing that i have about myself, i don't like cursing. i won't demand that other people not curse in front of me, that doesn't bother me. most of my friends curse exsessively, and if they want to do that, that's their business.
sometimes if i'm really angry or upset, the odd word will slip out, but i do make a conscious effort not to swear.
but you guys are right. words like 'hell' and 'damn' and 'oh, my God' are accepted now, and i have to admit to using these phrases a lot.
 
I swear like a sailor, altho I censor myself in certain company (mom, work, stuff like that). Kinda reminds me of that movie The Long Kiss Goodnight, "you go into a bar and two minutes later SAILORS come running out!" LOL! It's not quite that bad, but I do embarrass myself sometimes.
 
I live in Glasgow and grew up in Fife. Its difficult not to swear. Although I dont do it in front of family.
 
I'm sure a lot of it relates to how you were raised, your friends, your personality, your own culture. I never ask people to watch their mouth (well, friends maybe, occasionally). It's not like I'm outraged, deeply offended, lol. It's just like an annoyance sometimes.

I found a piece from waaay back in '96 that was interesting:

Swearing isn't the only public act that Western civilization condones today but didn't 30 years ago. But it is one of the most interesting. It is everywhere, impossible to avoid or tune out...

...aside from a few exceptions, the supply of genuinely offensive language has dwindled almost to nothing as the 20th century comes to an end; the currency of swearing has been inflated to the brink of worthlessness. When almost anything can be said in public, profanity ceases to exist in any meaningful way at all.

That most of the forbidden words of the 1950s are no longer forbidden will come as news to nobody: The steady debasement of the common language is only one of many social strictures that have loosened from the previous generation to the current. What is important is that profanity served a variety of purposes for a long time in Western culture. It does not serve those purposes any more.

http://www.slate.com/id/2373/
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He's arguing that swear words used to be more important, useful for a society"”and now they're just generic modifiers, adjectives. I guess people can argue about society being debased vs overly repressed...and what the happy medium is.
 
I was brought up in a strict religious household. I had it drummed into me that life was black and white. There was good and evil, right and wrong. Swearing was wrong.

Personally I don't understand what the problem is, when I swear it's a conscious decision, I do it to emphasize a point.

While I strongly disagree with a lot of my parents ideals, I would never swear at them or in their company.

I know that they are good people, or at least aspire to be good people, so I respect that, and them.

Excluding them, I swear at anybody and everybody. I really don't give a ****. Be offended, don't be, whatever.
 
S
StuckinTraffic
[No message]
Fiver said:
Excluding them, I swear at anybody and everybody. I really don't give a ****. Be offended, don't be, whatever.
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Well I'm with ya there. No one has the right not to be offended. At least, I hope that's never again the case in Western culture. You just censored yourself though, heh. I guess the moderators are the final authority around these parts...

I think parents may sometimes feel pressure to censor themselves...when their tots start swearing up a storm.
 
i didn't start swearing until effing graduate school, and now i have managed to take up swearing and drinking...score one for higher education.
 
S
Schillaci
That's hilarious.
Hehe... I quite like to swear in English... but I really find it bad in French... like... oh well you all know the French's reputation for cursing (gotta love the Monty Python hehe) but I don't know... it really sounds stupid and bad to swear in French...
Like say bitca (but the other one version) in English... it sounds like ok... say it in French "sal##pe".. and it's just like :rolleyes0
But I know that's cause I don't have the background and like I'm not used to it being bad... like the c##t word.. it doesnt sound bad at all to me... and I happened to say it just like randomly asking "so c##t is a bad word" and ppl looked at me like :O hehe
The bad thing is sometimes I dont even realize it's a curse.. so last summer I found myself say "damn it" and "shut up" to 7 to 12 years old kids... and my friend had to tell me dont say that!:stop: lol... oopsy sorry!
 
Old Master 3.0
Old Master 3.0
Oh, I dunno....the word "sh#t" sounds so cool in French. :p It's rolls off the tongue so effortlessly....mierde! Mierde! Mierde! Mierde! Hehehe......Mierde! **gets bar of soap jammed into his mouth....***
I love swearing in other languages. Since my friend got back from France she's infected me with a lot of French swearing, same as I quite like swearing in Danish.

Do my fair share of swearing in English and Swedish to, but I don't think I over use the words. Besides I just see them as words to spice up the dialogue, and I can't really see anything wrong with them. Especially since almost all English words are based around sex and sexuality whereas the Swedish one are all based around religion, so I get sorta mixed up and it's hard to know exactly how bad something is, it all just sorta blurs together.
 
Fiver said:
I was brought up in a strict religious household. I had it drummed into me that life was black and white. There was good and evil, right and wrong. Swearing was wrong.

Personally I don't understand what the problem is, when I swear it's a conscious decision, I do it to emphasize a point.

While I strongly disagree with a lot of my parents ideals, I would never swear at them or in their company.

I know that they are good people, or at least aspire to be good people, so I respect that, and them.

Excluding them, I swear at anybody and everybody. I really don't give a ****. Be offended, don't be, whatever.
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Same there are certain people such as my parents that i respect and never swear around...no matter how much they piss me off...

However, I think I swear to much around other people...I really dont so much care if i offend them personally because it's my point of view and I will share it if i want to...freedom of speech...they are offended by it well they don't have to listen...but I think it sounds trashy especially coming from someone my age and i dont like that...so i try to catch myself and stop, but i still swear to often I think...especially when I'm angry...
 
I swear all. The. Time.

It's gotten to the point where I don't even notice it anymore. It's actually a conscious effort for me to censor myself around certain company [my boyfriend's parents, for example].

I was also brought up in a household where swearing was TEHBADOMG, but after I hit about thirteen, my parents just stopped caring. I mean, I call my mom a bitch on a regular basis. Not because I mean it, but because that's how my mom and I joke around.

So, yea. I swear. A lot. Excessively. Probably a little too much. Meh, I no care.
 
You know, I gotta say, I really like the sound and feel of English swear words. Lots of harsh, hard-edged sounds. Lots of "k"s and "sh"s. Just makes them that much more satisfying to spew in someone or something's direction when you're really, really pissed.
 
Speaking about ****ing pissed, this bastard thing won't let me post in a certain topic, it's a bloody conspiracy!

Seriously, what the HELL?
 
thought this was fairly amusing...

The new naughty

When is effing profanity not freaking profane? More than three decades after George Carlin rattled sensibilities with the "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television," the blue has gone absurdly grey. Viewers of Battlestar Galactica know what "frak" means. Ditto the "frik!" and "double-frik!" uttered by Elliot Reid (Sarah Chalke) on NBC's Scrubs. On a recent Grey's Anatomy, Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson), in the midst of giving birth, implored George O'Malley (T.R. Knight) to "Stop looking at my va-jay-jay!" Pardon? Gosh darn it, euphemisms have been around forever. But each year, writers invent new ways to bowdlerize scripts to let characters do something they're still not supposed to do: swear. And so the "fug" in Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead has given way to a puzzling lexicon of neologisms as writers sidestep network censors and the wrath of conservative bureaucrats. Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, has a page devoted to fictional expletives. There are plenty of F-words, though most of us would never shout "frell," "frinx" or "fup" after stubbing a toe. Farscape practically created an in-house dictionary of faux profanities and bodily slang "” from "drannit" to "fahrbot" to "frek" to "frelnik" to "greebol" to "mivonks" to "yotz." " The idea of making up swear words is actually a clever one," says Robert Thompson, a television expert at Syracuse University. "First of all, we have just plain worn out our swear words." More than 20 years ago, St. Elsewhere writers asked NBC for permission to use the word "testicles." They were denied. And a half century ago, you wouldn't use the word "pregnancy" or even let viewers hear a toilet flush. But linguistic taboos erected over hundreds of years came crashing down in a single generation, Thompson says. Yet ironically, fake profanities are sprouting as real profanities lose the power to scandalize.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...787&call_pageid=968867495754&col=969483191630
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