“Swear like a trucker” and “swear like a sailor” are two very common cliches used in describing a situation where one utters a stream of profanities.
My question is rather simple: do sailors and truck drivers, as a whole, generally swear far more than the general population at large? If so, why? If not, how did they get that reputation?
Fuck yeah!
Seriously though, truckers and sailors tend to be young men, and young men swear a lot more than any other population.
I can’t answer for either profession directly, but I did work construction, which is another male-dominated “rugged” profession. Almost everyone said “fuck” all the time, and I started doing it. I noticed and began to curtail myself when I couldn’t describe something I was talking about and just began saying how the fucking thing was fucked with fuck, uh… fuck. (Note, the people I worked with were not assholes, or at least not most of them. No one whistled at hot women walking by, people were considerate to each other, etc).
I would assume that any sort of profession where you don’t need to interact with “normal” society on a regular basis, or only for short periods of time develops its own methods of interaction. Add to that the quasi-male culture that pervades stereotypes, and you probably have a decent combination for a bunch of fucking fuck.
I hold a CDL, and will offer a proper fucktual when needed.
I was a Seabee (Navy construction worker). English was a second language.
I drove a truck (18-wheeler) for a while. I was bilingual: English and Profanity.
Seriously, as regards the OP’s questions, I can easily see how the reputation developed. When there’s nobody else with you in your workplace (or in a tandem driver case, nobody who cares), then everything that goes wrong becomes a royal #@%: the @#% minivan who jumps in front of you and hits the brakes, the @#% who thinks you can stop 80,000 pounds on a dime, the @#% who sits in the highway stop talking how “those trucks should yield to the cars, because we’re, like, smaller” (hint: we cannot break the laws of physics). As with anything, when you have professionals sharing the road with amateurs, there’s going to be friction–and in the vehicular case, hopefully, it won’t be physical. I, and many others, relieved those times behind the wheel by letting loose a stream of profanity that once uttered, never remained; and let us feel better. Heck, at times, I still do this when I’m driving somewhere–much to the chagrin of my wife, who is usually in the passenger seat.
Lucy in Disguise–I know you’re a trucker and I’d love to hear your views here. Could you weigh in?
Tree Guys swear a lot too, from what I have personally overheard.
Given that they could fall at any minute or drop a heavy log on a co-worker, it’s understandable.
There’s a language in the military that Tom Wolfe characterized in The Right Stuff as Army Creole, where every other word was “fuck”. Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s not just the Army. My language has become so salty from the military that I quite literally have to stop and think about what I’m going to say before I speak in front of my son.
That old canard is 100% true, and not limited to truckers and sailors.
A good friend of mine is a company commander in the Reserves (and is currently in Iraq, so everyone send your prayers to Capt. C!) He likes to tell the story about the new recruit going through training in his unit, who spoke up when they were being introduced to the chaplain & his role, and were given an opportunity to ask questions. “Reverend,” the young private began, “I’ve lived all of my life as a good Christian; but since I’ve joined the Army, it seems all I hear is cussing. What can I do to get these other Army folks to use more polite language around me?”
Everyone: :dubious:
Chaplain: “Tough shit, soldier.”
This is actually part of our out-briefing that we give to Soldiers who are returning from combat zones. We tell them they may need to lay off the technical terms like s**t and motherf****r. I explain to Soldiers that their families may not be used to this jargon and it should be avoided. Now, with my job to-be involving civilians, I have tried to refrain from these terms. The worst I try to say is knuckle head.
SSG Schwartz
My Dad worked as a civilian contractor with the Canadian Army in the erarly 1950s. His language, that I recall, was pretty good–mostly. Every now and then, he’d fall back on what he knew: @#% this and @#% that, and @#% t'other thing. As a child, I was shielded from the bad things by Dad , but as I grew older, those mattered less (according to Dad). By the time I was 18, and had reached my majority, Dad and I were on @#% great terms. (Note that my mother had died years earlier.) Anyway between what Dad taught me from the military, and what I learned myself from civilian life, I basically speak three languages: English, French, and Profanity.
I was a sailor for twenty three years, in the Seabees, which is construction work. Then I owned and operated an OTR truck for twenty four years. I’m no novice when it comes to using profanity. In the era I grew up in, swearing was not acceptable in mixed company or other, more formal social situations, but quite common among men alone, especially young men. I think it’s something that most men outgrow as they get older and, perhaps, more educated and mature.
I still use profanity on ocassion, but I’m always aware of my surroundings and who may be listening. Profanity, IMHO, has it’s place and can be very appopriate in the right situation, as well as extremely inappropriate in the wrong situation.
Profanity is often used in conjuction w/ anger and I think that’s almost always a mistake, it often the fastest way to lose an argument.
Now THAT is a load of shit. A Senior NCO NEVER loses an argument, no matter how much they swear. If your Chief Petty Officers ever let you win an argument I’d be stunned. When my Chief and/or Senior Master/Master Sergeants feel the need to swear, you do what you’re told and nothing else. End of discussion.
Sorry for the profanity. Just prepping for Master. 
Question: such profanity, is it just a kind of SmurfSpeak where every smurfing smurfed smurf who can’t smurf a smurf is replaced by the f*ck equivalent?
Or is there actually creativity and variety, and if so, where can I find linguistic examples like this one? ? (Drillsargeant quotes from the movie “Full metal Jacket”).
The quotes you referenced are typical of the usage. You can call it a type of Smurf-Speak if you like, but man, when I get jazzed up I have been known to make everybody in my wing laugh at my creativity, to the point that they intentionally get me spun up to hear my unique brand of vituperative prose. I’d give R. Lee a run for his money, and that is no joke.
Former squid.
Not only do sailors swear and curse with wild abandon, in general it’s one of the few professions that I’ve encountered where the alliterative, or artistic a specific bit of invective might be, the more respect someone would get. When I got out of the Navy, and while I was on leave, the adjustment to more socially conscious modes of speech was something of a hurdle. I remember making some poor teenybopper girl manning a late night desk at an upstate NY hotel in a snowstorm when she started mouthing off polite inanities, “Do you want a room? Oh, I’m sorry, we’re all booked up.” And being horrified when I realized that what, for me, was a rather mild expression of annoyance and disgust was clearly, utterly beyond her experience. Or ability to cope with.
As for the larger question of why? I can’t give you a definitive answer. I suspect that one factor is simply that so much of my naval service was aboard a combat vessel and, at the time, those were all male crews. Things have changed some since then, but still - the simple presence of women often does act as a limiting factor on the male of the species. (When we had a group of about fifteen female middies embarked for their middie cruise, a number of us commented on how relatively refined conversation had gotten aboard ship. ETA: This is not to say that this ‘refined’ conversational mode would have been acceptable in the local supermarket, let alone in church, just that it was orders of magnitude less foul than it had been.) Other factors that I suspect would come into play - historical factors, both involving the average education of the lower decks personnel, and the “English was a second language” that Chefguy mentioned so anyone trying to appear “salty” would use a lot of cuss words; the equipment aboard ships generally owes first allegiance to Murphy - and everyone knows that the more inventive and foul one’s curses against the inanimate, the more likely that the repairs will hold.
It’s almost as good as chicken bones.
Fuckin’A dittybag!
What in the goddamn hell do zoomies know about swearin’ anyfuckinway, dipshit cocksuckers flittin’ around the wild blue fuckin’ yonder like assholes pretendin’ they’re maryfuckinpoppins or a dicklickin’ tinkerball! 
That work for ya’ A.D.?
Sometimes nothing fits like profanity.
In that case, sir, you are an artist. The quotes I linked to, imho, are pitifully limited in their scope (insults, using homosexual acts and slurs on masculinity, and caramaderie/respect dressed up as insults) but within that limited scope, thye are absolutely brilliant. A sort of rap battle without the rythm, if you like.
Smurf-Speak is utterly boring. Creativity with language, wherever it is found, is awesome. 
Are you sure that “swear like a trucker” is correct? I have never heard of it but have heard of “swear like a trooper”, which sounds similar. “Swear like a trooper” gets 12,200 Google hits versus only 1,350 for the trucker. That suggests that “trooper” may have been misheard as “trucker” and a new form of the phrase arose. “Trooper” also fits with the “sailor” version.