# How Often Do You Use Profanity **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 7, 2010, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-use-profanity/538583 "2010-05-07T02:20:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Todderbob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@Todderbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Todderbob)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-use-profanity/538583/21 "2010-05-07T06:24:41Z")
Not often, and not at all around people who I respect and would be offended by it. In the company of friends, or people who i can be loose tongued with, with frequency that the situation warrants. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-use-profanity/538583/22 "2010-05-07T06:34:05Z")
Fucking daily. ---
**Author:** ![torie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@torie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/torie)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-use-profanity/538583/23 "2010-05-07T07:22:19Z")
Yeah, I’m going to jump on the “all the fucking time” bandwagon. I learned the hard way that I have to watch myself around my kids now. I had Leo in the bath earlier tonight. I was reaching to wash his hair and knocked over this huge bottle of conditioner my husband uses. It made a huge splash and noise. Leo looks down at the bottle and growls “ooooooohhhhhhhhhhhh sssssssssshhhhhhhhhhiiiizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!” Worst. Mother. Ever. ---
**Author:** ![Electric\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9de0a6/32.png) [@Electric\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electric_Sky)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-use-profanity/538583/24 "2010-05-07T08:15:13Z")
With friends, often enough for it not to be remarkable, but not too often that it’s just punctuation. With acquaintances and at work, close to never. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-use-profanity/538583/25 "2010-05-07T08:26:35Z")
Far too often. I am fluent in [Army Creole](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Army%20Creole) (as adapted), where every other word is a four-letter one. It doesn’t help that prior to my enlistment I worked for a good number of years in a city at the type of job where swearing is as natural as breathing. I curse up a storm and I don’t even know I’m doing it. ---
**Author:** ![Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f08c70/32.png) [@Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crowbar_of_Irony_3)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-use-profanity/538583/26 "2010-05-07T08:50:32Z")
I’m usually quite docile when it come to swearing. But what I am debugging programs, and it just doesn’t work, I swear constantly. ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-use-profanity/538583/27 "2010-05-07T08:55:06Z")
Incredibly rarely and extremely mildly. _For crying out loud_ is as bad as it generally gets, but I let out a heartfelt and vehement **Bollocks** when I stumbled and fell running and grazed myself last week ;). If I do use a swear word in anger, I am obviously completely out of control or so angry my brain filters cannot keep up, but I can’t think of more than once or twice that it has happened, and it is so out of character that those around me get pretty worried at that point. Si (who holds [James 3:9-12](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James+3&version=NIV) in high regard) ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-use-profanity/538583/28 "2010-05-07T09:06:24Z")
Profanity is punctuation for me. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-use-profanity/538583/29 "2010-05-07T09:28:51Z")
I swear all the time. So do all my friends and many of my colleauges. One of my female friends coins the most beautiful swearing poetry in her regular daily speech, with liberal use of the words cunty and buttfucking arseholes. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-use-profanity/538583/30 "2010-05-07T09:49:58Z")
I use the softball-league curses all the time: shit, fuck, damn, bastard, etc. Major-leage, XXX profanity: Cunt, nigger, motherfucker… very rarely. And I love the powderpuff curses: Gosh, Jeez, darn, dagnabbit, heck, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-use-profanity/538583/31 "2010-05-07T11:12:39Z")
I swear in at least 2 out of every 3 sentences I speak. I _can_ not swear at all if the circumstances call for it, but my default setting is very sweary. ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-use-profanity/538583/32 "2010-05-07T11:45:58Z")
I too swear like a sailor. Nobody seems to mind but I have the pleasure of annoying my ex-boyfriend/friend by saying “bugger” when I drop something on my foot and “bollocks” when I disbelieve. “You’re American!!” “I remain an Englishman.” So why should I listen to that cunt’s shite. On the other hand there’s my New Yorker punk rocker love who’s favorite explitive is “goodness gracious”. It’s adorable. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-use-profanity/538583/33 "2010-05-07T12:38:44Z")
I swear constantly. I can stop if I have to, but I rarely do that. I use a lot of fake swears too; I say “blerg” and “fudgesicle,” stuff like that. I like to use really nasty swears for mundane things. Here’s what I don’t understand. Everyone on here is saying they swear a lot, but whenever you read about a Quentin Tarantino movie or something, people say, “I don’t know anyone who cusses like that!” which always embarrasses me because I do, and so do my friends. Maybe I just read the wrong movie discussions, I dunno. ---
**Author:** ![corkboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@corkboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/corkboard)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-use-profanity/538583/34 "2010-05-07T12:44:42Z")
Rarely. When I do it surprises even me sometimes. Like this morning, on my way to work, when I tried to call my wife on the car’s hands-free thing. I pressed the button on the steering wheel and said “Call [wife]” And the car responded “Dial: 7-0-7… please complete the phone number.” And I responded “Fuck you, you fucking stupid piece of shit!” Then I hung up and tried again. I’ve found that since having kids, I sort of automatically and unintentionally censor myself, because I used to swear much more often. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-use-profanity/538583/35 "2010-05-07T12:53:13Z")
> [@CanvasShoes](#): > > Not often at all. Other than the (now) archaic and completely non-shocking “Dammit”. And an occasional “kicked my ass, it did” mild stuff like that. > > I dislike it. NOT because I find it shocking, I find in utterly lacking in imagination. And when it’s someone who does it almost literally every other word, it’s annoying in a kind of “record skipping on a song”, time-wasting, kind of way. > > It also takes what used to be kind of a sexy, naughty word, and turns it into the conversational version of a space holder. Boring really, now that I think about it. I feel like “JEEEEEEEEZ, it would have taken you about 20 seconds to tell me that story if it hadn’t been for the 357 different uses of the word ‘fuck’”. That’s almost exactly how I feel about the matter. Especially the part about being lacking in imagination. And honestly, based on your previous posts, I’m not surprised that you feel this way. It’s one of the things I like about you. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![badbadrubberpiggy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/57b2e6/32.png) [@badbadrubberpiggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badbadrubberpiggy)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-use-profanity/538583/36 "2010-05-07T12:53:44Z")
Not that often. Just never got into the habit. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-use-profanity/538583/37 "2010-05-07T13:18:30Z")
When it is appropriate, and almost never about people. I will tell people they are doing something “fucking stupid.” I will never say they are “fucking stupid.” ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-use-profanity/538583/38 "2010-05-07T13:23:37Z")
Dangit is about as strong as I get, though if I’m really really badly surprised (like the time someone pounded on our door at 1am) I might say “What the hell?” But that’s only about once a year. I don’t really care for swearing myself. ---
**Author:** ![joyfool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-use-profanity/538583/39 "2010-05-07T13:28:47Z")
I used to swear like a sailor too, but I’ve given it up completely. I don’t miss it. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-use-profanity/538583/40 "2010-05-07T13:29:18Z")
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