I am fucking incapable of comprehending exactly what variety of bullshit this is with regards to swearing and shit having a goddamned adverse effect on one’s cocksucking vocabulary.
I think a good rule is to use profanity for emphasis, not as punctuation.
I think swearing is sometimes brought about when debating a topic and one side can’t defend against the other and resorts to name calling - so not nessesarly a limited vocab. but more like when you have nothing to say for one reason or another.
Vocabulary is about more than knowing a lot of words–it is about using those words to distinguish shades of meaning. I am more impressed by someone who has three different words that express something in three slightly different ways than I am by someone who knows ten words for exactly the same thing. Profane statements often include a shade of meaning that can’t be provided otherwise.
The best example of this is Radiohead’s “Creep”–the line “You’re so fuckin’ special” says a lot that the bowlderized radio version (“You’re so very special”) does not. The same with Ani DiFranco’s line, “Everyone is a fuckin’ Napoleon.”
Another word that I often can’t find an exact substitute for is “bullshit”. There are plenty of other words that mean almost the same thing, but not quite. When I say “bullshit”, I mean “bullshit”.
Ann Landers should really augment her vocabulary with some profanity. “That’s some jacked-up shit, dude. Get some fuckin’ counseling.”
Dr. J
I think we’ve pretty well established that the General Answer here is “no.”
Does there remain a General Question?
Not unless someone unearths some study that makes a claim about relationships between profanity and overall vocabulary size.
That’d just be interesting, though, because the answer is still, obviously, “Fuck no!”
Well, in a technical sense, if you know certain profanity words and how to use them effectively, you have a larger vocabulary, not a smaller one.
As to whether this makes one tend to not use other words - possibly. I have found myself falling into certain ones over and over again. “Jesus-fuck!” is my invention, the short form of “Jesus Fucking Christ!” and even I’m getting tired of it.
I do favor more ‘polite’ forms of expletive, such as balderdash, poppycock (as in “Absolute poppy-cock!”), rubbish, vile, tommyrot, etc… the compound ones are great.
And on a tangent, some of my Southern relatives have a way of saying “I don’t care for that” that makes you feel like you’re dripping with slime. I wish they’d just curse rather than do verbal drive-bys like that.
I could swear (
) I’ve posted this before, but couldn’t find it. It’s worth a read: The Right Word from Cigar Aficionado magazine.
The article author quotes Mark Twain thus:
I can’t argue with that.
I find that swearing for me often serves a completely different function than normal language.
I think that in these cases the words I use would more properly be called expletives. When I am mad or have some other intense emotion to express, the emotion tends to come out as an expletive. When this happens the word really has no verbal content at all. I think this use of swear words is triggered by an entirely different part of my brain from the language area. I would say that whether you use ‘unacceptable’ words or euphemisms when you use expletives, you are expressing the same idea.
As for swearing with verbal content goes, I would say that those who see it as a sign of a limited vocabulary ussually are not able to decipher the meaning behind the swear words. It would be like if I went to England and sat in on a conversation between two Brits. I would understand what they were saying in general, but I might not understand every word or catch every nuance. In this case if I didn’t understand everything that was said I would assume I missed something because of our different cultures. An older person listening to a younger person (or vice versa) might not make this assumption because they wuold think that they are of the same culture with the same language. In fact, their language most likely has changed somewhat.
Although certainly a gorgon vocabulary can heretically allow one to orthoganoly express oneself more spectacularly, don’t most people strive for a large vocabulary just to “appear” smart? I hardly see how meszmorizsing more words can truly be said to increase one’s intelligence. I define intelligence pretty much as an IQ test. That is, my definition of intelligence does not rely on experience or worldly knowledge but on pure smarts and problem-solving aptitudability.
Speaking of vocabulary. "O tempora! O mores! ‘O Times! O Daily Mirror!’ " – Michael Flanders
[sub]Still as true today as it was in 1960.[/sub]