Well, my son is almost 17 and my step son is almost 24 and they were raised that way. Didn’t. Seem unusual even then.
Christ, that’s almost as bad as my mother convincing me that “shut up” was a swear (until I was about four).
Bunch of bullstupid? No, that doesn’t work.
No because like u gotta have a word for a kid to say when there mad
How about “oh, poppycock!”
(And, yes, I realize this thread is a zombie, but it’s interesting to me now that I have kids.)
No, “stupid” isn’t a curse word, but I don’t like my kids using it at others. (They’re 7 and 5). In other contexts, it’s fine. But “stupid” is not a specific word I don’t like – it’s just the general name-calling I’m against. The reprimand is “hey! don’t call your sister stupid!” not “hey, we don’t use that word around here.” It’s not the word being used that is problematic. Meanwhile, “I hate that show, it’s stupid” is perfectly fine.
I very very occasionally overhear my children swear, and I don’t much care as long as they know the context they can swear in. I’m pretty sure I went over the major swear words with them once when they asked me about them. (They were pretty good at instinctively knowing which words were swear words and which weren’t.) Every so often they come up to me with a borderline case like “damn it” or “ass” and I kind of explain, try not to say it in front of your Catholic school teachers or priests. And every so often a case like the OP’s comes to me, where my daughter asks me about a word her friend’s parents consider a swear, but I don’t, and I have to explain how people have different ideas of what is appropriate language and just not to use it around them.
Not exactly a curse word, I would say, but I feel is a word/concept that is often better avoided.
I make videos about scams and scam victims, and one very common theme I see in the comments from people is ‘how can people be so stupid?’.
IMO, this isn’t helpful - for a variety of reasons:
- It stigmatises the victims
- It ends the conversation or inquiry about what actually happened - and the learning opportunity that would have followed, does not.
- It’s often, I believe, motivated by a desire to feel morally superior in some way
- Mocking the failure of another person (especially when it has been pointed out for you) can lead to a false sense of invulnerability
I don’t think it’s a completely useless word. I might even use it to describe my own accidental or misadventurous actions - like if acting on autopilot, I put my car keys in the fridge, or if I absently place a bottle somewhere that it immediately falls over - perfectly happy to assign ‘that was stupid’ to the event.
The problem I have is, a lot of the time, I think when people say ‘that was stupid’, there is an unspoken corollary: '…and I would never do anything like that because I am so very smart ’
Right. I’ll bet my Dad thinks I don’t curse.
Did you get out a shovel to dig this up and reply?
And yes, they do curse like sailors now because they are basically now grown-ass men.
But thanks for reminding me of SDMB. I’ve missed this place.
Ha! Had no idea your post was that old.
Calling people “stupid” is insulting and I always admonished my children if they improperly used the word. Saying things along the lines of xyz company is “doing stupid things” for one reason or another is quite something else.
However I don’t think of “stupid” as falling into a similar category as George Carlin’s 7 words.
You’re right about all this. Apart from what you said, it’s a word I try to avoid - it’s not a curse word, but it’s fighting words. If you use it to describe someone else’s argument, or even worse, them, then use it knowingly. It is not neutral and it will put their backs up. You are taking a stance. Probably one with a metaphorical hand on a gun holster.
“Fighting words” is a good term we could use more widely than in the American movies I’ve seen using it, and the areas if the US where people presumably actually use that term. They’re not curse words, they’re not blasphemous, but they are words or short phrases that will often make hackles raise.