The Age of Profanity

[Doh!]

It boils down to "manners", I guess.

Exactly. There are several activities one does in the privacy of their home that are just rude in public (belching, for one). It bugs me to hear people cuss in public, especially if it's around kids. And hearing kids cuss is REALLY off-putting.

That said, and perhaps this makes me a hypocrite, I'll curse like a sailor -- amongst friends. Never in public, though. Unless, of course, I'm out driving and get cut off by some stupid son-of-a...

 

[matei]

I try to act like a civilised person in public, and that for me means - among other things - holding back on the expletives.

Every once in a while I do slip and let 'em rip, and my wife is inavariably on hand to let me know the error of my ways!

When I was a kid I don't remember the adults in our family or circle of friends swearing all that often. It was a rare occasion indeed when my father would, and this usually signified extreme displeasure - time to head for the hills! My grandfather, a WWII vet, would do so even less frequently.

 

[nightandthecity]

When I first started mixing with older men in the mid 60s - playing in a pipe band, working in various industrial jobs, frequenting pubs - older working-class adult men in groups swore pretty continuously and ferociously, particularly the F and C words. I was actually quite shocked. Also by the dirty jokes and freely circulating hard core pornography.

I no longer play in pipe bands or work in industry, but I do frequent pubs and mix with other adult males in a variety of situations. I would say there is MUCH less swearing nowadays among adult male groups. Also much fewer dirty jokes and NO circulation of porn.

What has changed is that swearing is now more open and less "under the counter" in society generally. You are more likely to hear women swear or to hear it in mixed groups. But I'm pretty sure men actually swear less among themselves.

This is my experience. But as the Baron says, I know of no serious study of the issue.

 

[jake_fink]

The arbitrary and capricious use of expletives around youth and in a raucous manner in public is reprehensible and those who are so oblivious that they seek to inveigle their moronic and imbecilic tendencies on the unsuspecting are equally reprehensible and odious. Why use expletives when I can make someone use a book they would not otherwise peruse---the dictionary.
Tiny Tim, while mellifluous to some is preposterous to me. His prestidigitation with the ukulele is more like profligate flatulents to me. He is however not responsible for language contortions due to expletives. It is more correctly directed at the current high level of arcane hedonism. That should be added to the lyrics previously penned and mentioned.

I raise you one yadda.

 

[John in Covina]

I raise you one yadda.

********
I dink e's got some-in wrong wit his troat!

 

[Marc Chevalier]

"Gone With The Wind" was almost not released because of Clark Gable's parting shot in the last scene.

And the film would have been so much nicer if Rhett Butler had said:


"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a hoot."

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a tinker's cuss."

 

[jamespowers]

********
I dink e's got some-in wrong wit his troat!

"I've been telling him that for six weeks now." lol

Regards,

J

 

[Bebop]

The arbitrary and capricious use of expletives around youth and in a raucous manner in public is reprehensible and those who are so oblivious that they seek to inveigle their moronic and imbecilic tendencies on the unsuspecting are equally reprehensible and odious. Why use expletives when I can make someone use a book they would not otherwise peruse---the dictionary.
Tiny Tim, while mellifluous to some is preposterous to me. His prestidigitation with the ukulele is more like profligate flatulents to me. He is however not responsible for language contortions due to expletives. It is more correctly directed at the current high level of arcane hedonism. That should be added to the lyrics previously penned and mentioned.

Regards to all,

J

I don't no wat yor taking about but you must be reely smart to use all those big wurds. Yur my hero.:eusa_clap

 

[Dis]

When I hear someone swear constantly, it does not particularly offend me. It does affect how much respect I have for that person. They sound like a blithering idiot when they pepper their speech with expletives.

Curse words are 'special situation' words in my eyes. There are situations when only the queen of cusswords will do. Even so I wouldn't say it out loud in front of anyone because it is sooo unladylike.

I don't remeber people using the f-word as 'filler' in their speech when I was a kid.

 

[Etienne]

I'd like to chime in on this one. To me, profanity is demeaning and very low class. People who respect themselves and others don't use it.

 

[jamespowers]

I don't no wat yor taking about but you must be reely smart to use all those big wurds. Yur my hero.:eusa_clap

Hahahahahhaha! Oh please. lol
It was more an example of what you can do to a person's mind with words other than expletives. Nowadays, you would probably have someone react to such words as did the guy in the movie Scanners. :eusa_doh:

Regards,

J

 

[magneto]

I was riding public transport this week and the (female) driver uttered a loud, insulting and profanity-laden comment for us all to hear, about a passenger who had just gotten off the bus. I had a "I can't believe this" moment. Some professional behavior!

 

[Lena_Horne]

It's not as if I have the right to but I am always especially offended when so-called ladies curse, or men, boys and children swear in front of women. Or, as Magneto experienced, when the person is supposedly operating in a professional capacity, and uses such language. Ay.

L_H

 

[Baron Kurtz]

I'm still wondering what is so offensive about these words. I tried to think about this but i couldn't come up with anything. Other than that they're generally slang expressions referring to sexual acts, sexual organs, or excretions of the body (none of which i find offensive). There cannot be anything wrong in the words themselves (that would be absurd) but we must be conditioned somehow to find these words offensive. Again, many of these words find their way into Elizabethan literature and earlier (Chaucer beat Shakespeare to the C-word). So what do you think? Why are the words offensive? No circular arguments, please. "Swearing is wrong ... because it is ... period" won't sway anyone's opinion. I'm willing to be swayed by reasoned argument.

There are also interesting cultural differences. Soccer stadia in the UK were, by the accounts of "old" guys i've talked to, much worse in the past than they are today - with the free availability of alcohol in the past people tended to get a little too worked up. One more is the phrase "p*ssed off" which would never be used in a mainstream UK paper due to its nature as a swear word (phrase) but found its way onto the back page of our local Purdue newspaper - after the basketball team lost - apparently it's okay in the US.

bk

 

[nightandthecity]

Words are just sounds. They have no inherent properties. Swear words are just words we define as taboo precisly so we can use them in certain situations to express strong feelings. People have always done this and always will.

I doubt very much if people swear more nowadays. In terms of my own lifetime and experience I'd say men swear much less, but women, children and mixed groups probably swear more, or at least more openly. I don't see anything particularly terrible in this.

Someone raised the issue of swearing in WW2. I mixed a lot with WW2 veterans in the 60s and early 70s. They swore "like troopers" (revealing phrase that). They could hardly string a sentence together without multiple useage of the F word. Modern men are shrinking violets in comparison.

Possibly Brits were bigger swearers than Yanks. I remember a USAAF guy in a memoir I read saying he was shocked by the excessive swearing of British fighter pilots. Before the French called us Rosbifs they used to call us "Goddams".

Personally I have spent the day struggling (unsuccessfully) to install a new router and a shared internet connection. A choice lexicon of swear words is the only reason i didn't put my boot through the **++++***!!! screen.

 

[jamespowers]

How many of you that find nothing wrong with swearing all over the place parents? Think about what you want your children around and then think of what your parents would say or do about your abuse of the expletive side of our language. It is all a matter of respect for yourself and those around you. I don't care what anyone else does and what impetus/ excuse that may give you. Think about it.

Regards,

J

 

[mysterygal]

For me, not swearing to whomever I'm conversing with shows respect to that person. There needs to be boundaries in situations, and this is one...a line that needs to be drawn about what acceptable speech and what's not. Agreed, they are just words but those words have meaning...example...you're not going to come up to your mom, and say, 'hi b****, how's you're f****** day been going' it's plain common sense that that would be very wrong..why? because the obvious, it's disrespectful...so why, would you show that same kind of disrespect to your neighbor, friend, ect?

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Funnily enough it was my parents who instilled in me respect for all of our wonderful language. Their basic point was that words are just words and use of certain words in their most effective place is valid. And that there is nothing inherently wrong with any particular word. The degree of indoctrination against certain fine anglo-saxon words is fascinating. To avoid particular words because using them is "wrong" (no good argument for this yet) is in itself limiting one's vocabulary.

And surely profanity is covered in the free speech argument?

bk

 

[Quigley Brown]

Funnily enough it was my parents who instilled in me respect for all of our wonderful language. Their basic point was that words are just words and use of certain words in their most effective place is valid. And that there is nothing inherently wrong with any particular word. The degree of indoctrination against certain fine anglo-saxon words is fascinating. To avoid particular words because using them is "wrong" (no good argument for this yet) is in itself limiting one's vocabulary.

And surely profanity is covered in the free speech argument?

bk

I take it then that you use racial slurs in public. They're just words and use of these certain words in their most effective place is valid...as you stated above.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

You bet your saccharine rump he does. Why the hades wouldn't he?


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