Inspired by this thread, which revolves around the only curse word I’m aware of that I just can’t bring myself to use.
It’s odd. I mean, I grew up as a hard-core Catholic, so I know where it stems from. But I left Catholicism behind in my teen years, and although I’m not quite an atheist these days, I don’t really seem to subscribe in my heart to the idea of a benevolent higher power anymore.
But still, I seem to have this “just in case” mentality that prevents me from being willing to put “god” into any kind of cursing, particularly when coupled with “damn.” I can’t do it. To the extent that, if I’m singing along to a song that employs the term, I will censor myself. And it’s frustrating, because there are times when that is simply the PERFECT word for a situation. But I still can’t pull the trigger.
So, am I completely alone in this? Do others share my pain? Or do any of you have your own words, for whatever reason, that you simply won’t use, no matter how much you might be tempted to?
It doesn’t have anything to do with religion. I’m not religious at all and I almost never use the heavy duty curse words. I just don’t need them to communicate effectively.
The only reason I can thing of at the moment to use them would be to insult somebody, which is something I don’t find necessary.
I grew up in a house where my parents and even grandparents spun obscenities into beautiful and complex soliloquies. It was a poetic art-form that exists to this day. My father gave me some surprising news the other day and I responded “Well fuck me gently with a chain saw.” I don’t always have a filthy mouth. I turn it off and on unconsciously depending on the circumstances and context. I have worked in management in blue-collar industries where I learned new words in formal meetings with the chief executives. The only word I have never used in spoken conversation is ‘felch’ just because must people don’t know what it means and I don’t want to explain it.
I won’t use racial or ethnic slurs (at least ones I recognize. I’ve been surprised before), and I try not to use “retarded” though it slips out sometimes. That’s about it.
I won’t use racial, religious, or ethnic slurs, even when I’m gently poking fun at friends who are of that race or ethnicity*. I won’t use the word “retarded”, which is traceable directly to reading “Flowers for Algernon”. I won’t use “bitch”, “cunt”, or “whore” as a personal slur, though I will use “son of a bitch”, and I don’t flinch at hearing the words used by someone who’s making fun of the PC maelstrom that surround those words.
One of my housemates speaks English as a third language, and when I met her she had no self-censoring skills. It was all just vocabulary, so if you didn’t notice her slight accent you’d be surprised how commonly and evenly profane she was. She’d be as likely to swear when tying her shoes as when she hit her thumb with a hammer.
*For example, I regularly tease my housemate and my girlfriend about being Jewish, but I’d never call either of them a kike, though I would tell them to say ten “Hail Moshes” after eating a cheeseburger. You know, friendly stuff.
What I do swear at are inanimate objects. I’ve surprised people, who’ve never heard me swear, by cursing a blue streak at a recalcitrant printer or xerox machine.
No C word. Obviously no N word. Having live in Newfoundland, I tend toward “Sweet smothering Jesus”, “Jesus Mary and Joseph”, although in moments of real emotion I let fly with Jesus F-ing, H. Christ", or “Holy F*ck” which is not so good. I’m technically a Buddhist, but so far I haven’t found good swear words that fly as easily as the religious words of my childhood.
yep, I’m a PK and was certainly the most foul mouthed kid around and that lasted through my 30’s. It was kind of an advantage the 7 years I spent in investment banking.
I have toned it down greatly in the last decade. Actually, I try hard to be gender, racist, sexist, handicapped neutral. It’s just not the way I want to project myself or be misconstrued as.
“Asshole” seems to cover most of my requirements without crossing the line on some of those avoidable areas like gender, race, sex, handicaps, orientation, etc.
Maybe having a special needs child has helped me personally understand that words people attach no bad personal meaning to can be taken by a 2nd or 3rd party as *deeply *offensive and hateful. I still catch myself saying “fucktard” sometimes and frankly even using “retarded” for an idea, but I’m getting better on that score.
Now I can’t even see Jesus getting remotely offended at that. I can more imagine Him seeing that come up in someone’s life review, snicker & admit “That’s pretty good.”
i don’t care for the c word myself… thats really the only thing i wouldn’t use…
I’ll freely admit though i know i’ll receive slings and brickbats that as a black man i use the n word with my friends… heck sometimes with friends of differing racial backgrounds…
i like ethnic slurs. i grew up in chicago and i just became almost a geographical marker for me… lol i know its messed up… but racial slurs sometimes can provide some history that one might never know…
also… i can’t get behind the whole my kid will be forever destroyed if he reads Tom Sawyer… or Roll of THunder here me cry… i mean… man up… please…
No words are taboo for me, under the right circumstances.
My granddad used to say things like, 'What the bumbaclod?!" Which was Jamaican slang for ‘tissue to wipe your ass with’.
He would also say, ‘what the raasclot?’ which meant a used sanitary napkin, and ‘bloodclot’ which referred to (TMI ) the clots that a woman finds in her period blod.
The funny thing about that is, those three words were the absolute WORST things you could say in his culture. I mean, highly disrespectful.
But, at my job, instead of using ‘profanities’ me and my friend use the above words, and everyone feels it is completely fine, having no idea that we are spitting some of the foulest obsenities ever. Heh heh.
ETA: I didn’t even know ‘cunt’ was such a huge taboo until I learned that it was on this board. It is pretty much not used at all in my own social circles. Of course, I use it now though.
Why:eek: why:eek: did I google it. Now I can never unlearn that word.:smack:
I love to swear. But I never swear at anyone (I never get angry with people so it does not come up.) My range covers the old list from George Carlin. When I was a kid there was a boy in the neighborhood who pronounce the c word sooent. I say that to myself and it makes me laugh.
