Are You A Closet Cusser?

I (almost) never cuss, just because it’s beneath me. :wink:

I will type cuss words on occasion, if I’m posting something and need an extra oomph to the words, but even then it’s rare and in measured circumstances.

I will cuss at home or with close friends, but avoid it in public - and only explicitly as foul language. Casual cussing such as “Hey, how the fuck are ya?” sounds boorish to me (Don’t ask me to explain how it isn’t boorish when I actually mean it. I don’t know.)

My grandfather told me that profanity is for those who are too stupid and unimaginitive to come up with anything more horrible that can be constructed with nonswear words. So now I’m quite proficient with blasphemy, awful medical definitions, and have a keen grip on the proper pattern for a great curse.

Oddly enough, it bugs my father more when I curse at home, and he’s the one who taught me most of it!

Me (stubbing my toe): Ow. Fuck, my toe hurts.
Dad (swooping in from another room): Don’t curse!
Me: Why? I’m not offended, you’re not offended. I stubbed my toe.
Dad: Your mother might hear.
Me: It wouldn’t bother her. And she’s not listening anyhow.
Dad (loudly): WHAT?!
Mom (from upstairs): You guys okay down there?
Dad: He has a foul mouth, you know that?
Mom: Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Here are some more satisfying substitutions for cuss words:

“Shucks!” for Shit! or Fuck!
“Blooming”, “Jolly”, “Jolly well”, “bleeping” for various uses of Fuckin’… e.g. “The man is a blooming idiot.”
also “veritable”…the man is a veritable idiot.
“Defunct” for fucked up.

And I love Ned Flanders’s: “Jeepers H. Crackers!”

I just went to the Visual Thesaurus and typed in SHIT, and it came back with some excellent substitutions:
rot, guff, bunk, bunkum
or for FUCK: shag, bonk, bang, etc.

“Closet” cusser? Pshaw.

I make drill instructors look like amateurs.

But why replace the word “fuck” with something else if it has exactly the same meaning?! What’s offensive? The sound that the f-u-c-k makes? Is “puck” 3/4s offensive? How about “truck”? 3/5 offensive?
Or is the offensive part the actual meaning? If so, how is “let’s shag” less offensive than “let’s fuck”. Besides, “fuck” is very versatile. It’s a noun, adverb, adjective, verb, interjection…
My point is, if you’re going to say the fucking word, say the fucking word. If you don’t want “curse words” in your life, than don’t look for cutesy-ass replacements that mean exactly the same thing.

AndI played “Bull Shit” in school. The kids (all of who were Mormons) called it “Bologna”.

I think BraheSilver and I were separated at birth.

I have mom to thank for my trash mouth.

In a related vein, how many people think “crap” is a cussword?

IMO, it’s not; it has nowhere near the invocative power of “f–k”, “s–t”, or “a–hole”.