I drop an F bomb now again. As well as other naughty words.
I really wouldn’t do it in front of my grandma or a professional situation. But then again, I don’t get a bee in my bonnet if someone curses in my presence.
What are your thoughts?
I’m a bit of a hypocrite about it, I’ve worked construction jobs, been in the Army places where cussing was almost required to make it through the day.
I enjoy cussing around my friends but not around my family. Even though I’m an adult I particularly don’t like it when my Mom drops an F-bomb, I don’t know why, maybe because she never did that when I was a kid so it just sounds bad to my ears.
My kids are still young enough that I don’t let them cuss, and I try not to cuss around them but I’m not always successful.
Oh fuck no. I do try to keep it cleaner when I’m around kids or those I know have a problem with it but man, if you were to come around when I’m shooting the shit with my REALLY sweary friends we might make your hair frizz up.
OMFG are you shitting me? Hell to the no, but that’s just my voice inside my head before I edit myself.
I have never understood why Americans are so verklempt about cursing (well, in a way I do, because of religious traditions). A hearty curse here and there is good for anybody’s psychological well-being, and I don’t mind cursing whenever I want to and anybody else cursing around me.
Only one common curse word that offends.
Now you all can find out by painful trial and error which one it is.
I don’t curse. My mother washed my mouth out with soap when I was little and it stuck. We don’t come from a family that cusses, although occasionally one would be heard. Am I offended? Maybe just a little. Or offended might not be the right word, but my opinion of the person does go down.
StG
I am not consistent. I don’t have a rule and then you’re just fucking WRONG if you violate my rules of language use.
But what my inconsistent rules say is that nothing is wrong just because it is considered to be profanity. That’s not sufficient reason.
The word “fuck” bugs me because it is typically spoken with anger and the flavor of violence yet it’s denotatively tied to sex. And I am really uncomfortable with tying sexuality to angry violence. There’s a word for that: rape. Except nobody yells “rape” when they’re doing it, or threatening to do it. They say “fuck”.
I don’t give a shit about shit and I don’t wince about goddam and jesus christ. I don’t think cocksucker should be hurled around as if sucking cock were a bad thing, although I myself don’t care to be on either end of the experience. Might as well just yell faggot, that’s what the angry hostility embedded in the term is all about, ain’t it? But bracketing aside my already-mentioned thing about “fuck”, I am not additionally disturbed by motherfucker. It’s not like it gets worse in principle if it’s my mommy, or yours, or someone else’s. It’s either sex, in which case cool beans if my mom enjoys it, or it’s rape, in which case shouldn’t happen to anyone.
All the impact of cussing comes from violating the edges of polite custom, which in turn implies that you’re bringing up stuff that folks are squirmy about. I think “fuck” and “fucker” would make excellent cuss words if we could just get everyone to agree it means rape, and folks quit saying it means sex. It’s the equivocation that creeps me the fuck out.
And as I said, I’m not consistent or anything.
I curse very little on the web but IRL I curse. I don’t like it but I think 4 years in the Navy ingrained it too much. Every sentence in the Navy had to have F*ck in it.
Rarely do I curse, and I try not to be offended when others do, but those @&%% !!M&*^-#%s sometimes get the better of me.
For years, I was in an industry where if you cursed, they’d fire you (even if you were completely justified) . Now that I’m out of that, I can let slip… but my wife has a fit if I curse at the table.
( But, now that Biden is president, I might never curse at the table again. )
Not offended by it. When I’m alone I’ll curse but very rarely around others.
What part of America do you live in (or are familiar with) where hardly anyone ever curses?
I am an inveterate curser, although I can largely modify my behavior as circumstances warrant, and often have to “excuse my French.”
There was probably little hope for me in terms of being offended. My folks gave me a copy of Carlin’s “Class Clown” with the “7 Words” bit when I was in grade school, but taught there was a time and place (more times and more places than for most kids, but not around grandma, some other families, etc.).
My wife was known at the kids’ school as “The F-Bomb Mom” so we are pretty well matched and she’s no damper on my vocabulary. Once I was telling a story at dinner and my kids (probably tweens at the time) asked “dad, do you talk this way at work?” and I explained that I worked for two Scotsmen who were worse than me, so yes, I did. One of them would forward emails with the sole comment being FFS.
So yes, lots/no not at all to the OP.
My question was about kinda traditional bad words. Not hate crime type stuff.
Like saying I was flate because some shhead on the freeway wouldn’t get out motherf** way. And I needed to take a pi**.
None, I’m in Germany, and I’ve got my impression about American hang-ups about cursing from an outside perspective, like this thread. It’s obvious that public cursing is shunned more in America than here, which you can tell by the ban on it on regular TV for example, which hasn’t been a thing here for a very long time. Also please note that I’ve never said that hardly anyone ever curses in America, but just that it’s generally more frowned upon than in other parts of the world.
I do some. I think there’s a time and a place for it, and I am annoyed by people who curse extremely frequently or in some context where it’s not appropriate, like at a formal event or around children.
Like the OP, context matters for me. I’m not offended when I’m sitting around with my pals and some swear words fly. Our crude juvenile senses of humor are usually far more offensive than any swear word we might use. On the flip side, I stopped going to public places with a guy I know because his mouth just doesn’t have a filter. It was embarrassing sitting in a restaurant with a guy who can’t stop swearing no matter where he is.
Is it “dagnab”?
Cussing is not part of my normal vocabulary unless I get angry. A former girl friend told me there are a million words we can use besides cuss words. I took that to heart. My wife on the other hand talks like a sailor much of the time. I will sometimes ignore her when she cusses, it aggravates her but she know why.