Is Swearing a Vice?

[KILO NOVEMBER]

So, do you differentiate between:
1) Swearing - taking an oath to do something you oughtn't , e.g.,("I swear I'll break you neck!") or falsely ("I swear I didn't take the last cookie!")
2) Cursing - Condemnatory language, e.g., ("Damn you!", "Stick it where the sun don't shine!")
3) Uncouth language - e.g., "the F-bomb"
?

 

[LizzieMaine]

So, do you differentiate between:
1) Swearing - taking an oath to do something you oughtn't , e.g.,("I swear I'll break you neck!") or falsely ("I swear I didn't take the last cookie!")
2) Cursing - Condemnatory language, e.g., ("Damn you!", "Stick it where the sun don't shine!")
3) Uncouth language - e.g., "the F-bomb"
?

I've pointed this out before, but it bears repeating -- swearing in the Era tended much more toward "cursing" than toward obscenity. The most common "swear words" were blasphemies and oaths -- g-d it, things like that -- and attacks on the legitimacy and ancestry of the target -- You S.O.W.S.O.B, things like that. Obscenities of the "F" variety were considered, as you say, uncouth and vulgar. They existed, but not in mixed company.

My grandfather ran a gas station, and before that had been a longshoreman -- two professions in which proficiency with swearing is traditional -- and I heard endless variations on blasphemies, oaths, and attacks on legitimacy and ancestry. My mother got very very good in those varieties as well -- as did I. But I never in my life heard my grandfather say the "F" word in front of any member of the family, and I myself didn't even know what it meant until I was in junior high school.

"Suck," by the way, which is commonplace in modern language, was considered as untouchable as the "F" word. I saw "Nixon Sucks" written on the side of a building when I was ten, and asked my mother what it meant, and she slapped me across the face. (And we were a very, very anti-Nixon household.)

 

[LoveMyHats2]

When I first met my Husband, we spent a lot of time up North at his place there. Just South of where our home there is, at a campground some local Man used the "F" word out loud and directed his comments to a woman that had caused him to be upset for some stupid reason or another. This woman filed a complaint to the Police about it, and the man was arrested and sentenced to jail for it.

It is not easy at times to refrain from using some language that in all reality is just simply poor taste and manners. I think for some people, they may use some fairly nasty language around family or friends, but would change how they speak if they are at work or other public places. In my opinion, swearing is a habit, and the more a person swears the more it becomes a routine part of the way they speak.

I have always enjoyed one section of Reader's Digest that is all about vocabulary words to learn. It is nice to see how you can use and make a structured sentence without the use of anything even close to swearing, but getting the same "point" across.

The topic makes me think of Red Skelton, I can think he would use a word or two like, "dingle Berrie" and get more from that then using any swear word you can name, (not that he was known to be rude or ill tempered).

 

[fashion frank]

Not sure it's really a vice. But at the same time it can be an art form.

I gave it up for Lent last year and it was very hard to do. I'm good at it and I enjoy it.

-newsman-

Your quote reminded me of that line in " The Christmass Story " ,when the boiler in the house acts up and his father is down there trying to fix it and he is swearing up a storm and the quote that always makes me laugh is " my father would use obscenities, the way an artist dabbles in oils." IE : an art form.

And another great line in that movie as it pertains to swearing is when Ralphie drops the lugnut's to the car in the snow while helping his father change a tire and it goes thus : I dropped the lugnut's and I said "fudge " but I really didn't say fudge.

I myself will admit that when I get really angry that I will sometimes drop the F Bomb, but I go out of my way to try not to take the Lords name in vain such as G@dd@tt , or worse Jes@@ Ch@@st .

A co worker of mine is always doing stuff like this , you think he is going to say " shut the f@@k up " but he drags f@@k part and turns it into "shut the front door " and this one makes me laugh , 'Go have yourself a nice hot steaming cup of shut the f@@k up ".

In closing to answer the original posters question ,I dont think its a vice but I do think its a bad habit and dosen't show much class.

My neice who is a tall blond ,very smart ,a very hard worker ,has a figure like a capital S turned sideways and is always very lady like ,but when she has a few too many will start swearing like a sailor. A picture of the night we went to "A Bronx tale".

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...10298177.1073741826.1682912864&type=1&theater

I told her that it is very unbecoming of her and that it takes away from her as the person that she really is.

Also I dont think that swearing is very ladylike or somehow as "acceptable " ( not that it really is ) as when men do it .


All the Best ,Fashion Frank

 

[Gregg Axley]

With my wife, I call that "turning into Popeye The Sailor."
60% of the time she uses proper English, but 40% of the time (usually when she's surprised or mad) it's like being on the set
of Goodfellas or Casio. Her favorites start with an F, and then the one that I call "mentioning her mother."
I don't swear as a general rule, even though I'm in an industry that swears a lot (blue collar).
Honestly, there are some people I work with, that can't make an entire sentence out of English because of it.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I don't have the exact quote but Patton once said that a commander must be able to swear with eloquence and regarding his own choice of words that he was often "carried away by his own eloquence."

 

[hatguy1]

Yes, it is.

 

[Stearmen]

I had a coworker years ago, who did not swear much, he would say, "Jesus Christ," then a slight pause, and add, "Superstar!" It would help during a tense situation.

 

[hatguy1]

I had a coworker years ago, who did not swear much, he would say, "Jesus Christ," then a slight pause, and add, "Superstar!" It would help during a tense situation.

And at the same time encourage people to watch a very well-done film.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Stearmen]

And at the same time encourage people to watch a very well-done film.


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Funny how times change! When the film came out in 1973, that Sunday, our Priest forbid us from going to watch it, he said, "it was blasphemy!"

 

[hatguy1]

Funny how times change! When the film came out in 1973, that Sunday, our Priest forbid us from going to watch it, he said, "it was blasphemy!"

Yes, I remember those days. But what I think made it such a good film was how it reached that audience in terms they could understand/relate to.

 

[Sloan1874]

As a journo, swearing is the equivalent of steam escaping from a pressure cooker. It's usually most effective when done while smacking a telephone receiver against the cradle. One of my co-workers nickname at his previous paper was the very un-PC, 'Tourettes', but it was a very accurate description as his flights of invective could strip paint off a door! My attitude to swearing is, as long as everyone in the room is comfortable/participating, it's not a problem. In a nunnery, probably best to give it a body swerve...

 

[ChiTownScion]

My biggest gripe is with what I refer to as uncreative maladicta. You know, the usual four lettered expletives of Anglo-Saxon origin. Hollering F-this and F-that has been so overdone that it's essentially lost its zing, in addition to being in bad taste.

When it comes to cursing, some of the time tested Yiddish curses and insults are priceless. They raise cursing to an art form.

 

[Harp]

is with what I refer to as uncreative maladicta.

voce voltu motuque... a lawyer.

 

[Chas]

I have too much respect for profanity to over use it. When used correctly, it's a highly effective form of communication.

I recommend the doco "The F Word". brilliant.

If you cut out the profanity, you cut out Catullus, Henry Miller, D H Lawrence et. al. Who in their right mind wants to do that?