Profanity Without Using Curse Words
Tagged as: Feb 26Profanity is often used in society in order to express discontent. From mild, momentary displeasure to extreme fury, humans make use of a seemingly defined set of off-limit words to express their emotions. Often these words reference things which would generally be considered better left unspoken of.
What is profanity really? Apparently there are 5 types of swearing (according to Steven Pinker’s The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature which I found a reference to in the Wikipedia article on profanity):
Photo courtesy of Flickr user Found Drama- Dysphemistic - Opposite of euphemism. Force listener to think about negative thing
- Abusive - Abuse, intimidate, or insult others
- Idiomatic - Refer to (but do not explicitly mention) something in order to arouse interest, be macho/cool, or express to peers that the setting is informal.
- Emphatic - Emphasize what is being said (pretty self-explanatory)
- Cathartic - Rid oneself of negative feelings by outwardly expressing it
I can see how all of these are accurate descriptions for how profanity is used. It’s very interesting to study profanity and how it comes about. How it is sociological in a sense because profanity in our language is different from profanity in other languages (even taking into account translation). That’s not the issue.
The issue is that profanity comes out of your mouth much more than you’d like to admit. I feel your pain, it comes out of mine more than I’d like to admit, too.
In fact, I’ve told people before that I do not cuss. And I’m absolutely correct in a strict sense of the term. I don’t use those words that society has impressed upon me as being profane. In fact, I don’t feel like I need to use profanity in order to express myself. I do feel the same emotions that my cursing brothers feel. (Okay I don’t actually have blood brothers, but I mean it in the mankind term.) And yet I don’t see that it’s too necessary. Am I aghast when I hear it? Not extremely so. Well I’m not with those from whom I expect nothing better. Some people are held to a higher standard, but I digress.
So I don’t cuss. But the thing is that I’ll cuss in spirit. I’ll use nice versions like “darn”, “crap”, and “shoot” instead of the usual fare. But does that make it any better? No, I’m beginning to think that it does not matter much at all. Even though the words are different and less offensive to the ear according to society, the usage shows that my mouth is still overflowing with what is in my heart. And I can see that all is not right in that region of my chest. I’m not as loving or as good as I profess.
Ah if only the distance between my head and my heart weren’t so far.
“Cuss in spirit” - interesting! I do believe you’re right. I still cuss but rarely and I usually use the “darn” version. Most days I use “Dang” and I don’t think of it as swearing at all since I don’t feel it in my heart. I use “Dang” to express surprise or “Boy that’s too bad.”
What I’ve been surprised to hear is swearing at the office - both men and women! As a consultant I watched my mouth as you never know, right? But it’s been surprising and amusing to hear the word “crap” coming out of some mild-looking people. I do hear the eff word which was followed soon after with, “Whoops, sorry for my potty mouth.”
I don’t feel the urge to swear much these days. I also lost sarcasm along the way. Sarcasm is based on negativity and when you stop looking at life negatively, it’s hard to be sarcastic.
I know what you mean by not being aghast when you hear swearing - depending on the source. When I hear young men in their early 20s communicating primarily with swear words I admit to being judgmental. I think of incessant swearing as a defense for the weak and unimaginative.
I’ll hear the effin’ this and the effin’ that and he/she is an effin em-effin’ effin-effin and it just comes across as a bit ludicrous.
I do hear swearing at work as well. I guess since I was never a consultant who had to watch my image, I can only imagine the difference that you feel now.
I enjoy sarcasm every now and again. For me it did initially start as a defense mechanism, but I think that it has softened by now. When I use it nowadays, it’s mainly because I think that it can be used for humor.
It’s so unfortunate that people resort to constant swearing. I know exactly what you’re talking about because I’ve encountered it. It’s a pity when people can’t use the extensive English language to more accurately describe what they want to say.
Hmmm…well I guess my new years anti-resolution to start swearing isn’t going to be popular on this thread! :-0 :-0 :-0 It’s okay though - a year and a half later and I’ve only really gotten up to “crap”! A girlfriend/another teacher asked if I could start saying “sh*t” this year and I was like, “I dunno. I’m always sort of afraid I could accidentally say it in front of the kids.” She says, “How about f*ck then?”
Joking aside though…I still don’t know. I do think profanity is ok in some circumstances and not in others. And knocking out cussing even in spirit seems like a slippery slope. I don’t cuss/use swear words and I do think the over-use (Ms.Q’s last sentence) where people don’t even know another way to speak is sad, but I don’t see any reason to deny yourself an exclamation when you need one now and again either, especially if it’s a “nice” one. I’ve always told my kids that they can use whatever swear words they know IF there are no grown ups around and IF the children they are with already know the words they’re using (basically that they’re not teaching their friends any *new* swear words).
Resolved to START swearing? My my that’s interesting!
Why is not cussing in spirit a slippery slope? Where does that slippery slope lead to?
Hm I’m not sure that I would encourage my children (if I ever have them) to use swear words. Kids will try to misbehave, but just like with other things I’m not sure if promoting the mischief is the answer. But to each his (or her) own, huh? Did you grow up around swear words?
On the slippery slope - I think if you start berating yourself for things you haven’t even actually done…well…I dunno that seems like a slippery slope to me. I just think you have some off moments now & then and you have to give yourself a break sometimes if the stuff you can’t be perfect about isn’t that terrible to begin with and what’s more you haven’t even done it, but only have done it in spirit. (shrug shrug) It seems like you could end up being hard on yourself to an absurd extent if you weren’t careful and from there it would be easy to give up, there being almost no way to be a decent human being in your own eyes.
I don’t consider myself promoting my kids to use swear words or encouraging it. I just tell them that they can. I just think they do or they don’t. And if they do they are most certainly only using the swear words at what I feel like are appropriate times (ie not at school, not in a religious setting, not around adults, etc.). If they do (and I sort of doubt my kids are - I once asked 10 year old if he knew “a swear word that started with the letter “f” and he couldn’t even LOOK at me, much less admit to knowing the word! I told him, “It’s okay if you KNOW the word. I don’t really want you to USE the word, but it’s ok to KNOW it! He did finally fess up to knowing what word I was talking about) and they’re not making trouble with them, then they shouldn’t have to feel guilty about it.
I suppose that I can see your point about it being a slippery slope to a legalistic life in which you punish yourself. However, that’s definitely not what I want. I understand that there is some need for catharsis, but I wanted to address any of the root causes of profanity. People might argue with me here, but I think that there are healthier ways to deal with anger, bitterness, frustration, etc than with cursing. Granted, there are lots of worse ways. But I definitely don’t want to be exceptionally hard on myself “to an absurd extent” so I appreciate your comment!
Hm I’m still not sure if I agree with the swear words with kids, but that’s fine because I’m sure that we don’t have to agree on everything.
It’s interesting to see what other people think, though. I wouldn’t want a whole bunch of people always just telling me that I was completely spot-on for everything!