at school I’m just like “Mother… Shittin’… Son of an… Ass, One of these days I just OOH!!!” and then punch a locker (best when done in a broken-english/arab type voice)
but if you were around me and my deer-hunting buddies/hunting buddies or best friends in general you’d think we shot ourselves in the foot or got our fingernails ripped out…
the insanely ironic part is, I’ve NEVER got in trouble for swearing, and can’t even say freaking at home without getting yelled at…
so I swear around my closest friends and hunting buddies, but know hat there is no worse opportunity than a good opportunity to shut up 
You know, I had this discussion with DRY not too long ago.
Here is the thing. I try not to swear at all, and generally pretty much avoid doing so. However, when you say something in place of a word or phrase, and everyone KNOWS what you really mean, how is that any better?
So, when I say “What the Sam Hill” instead of WTF, and everyone knows that what I am saying translates into what THEY would have said, (WTF or What the Hell) then isn’t this just as much a bad witness? Is darn any better than damn, when everyone knows it is used for the same reason?
These are not questions I have an answer for. Everyone gets frustrated or angry, and needs to express it. You can’t go through life being totally anger free. It is just not possible. And verbally expressing your anger is healthier than holding it in, isn’t it?
The only thing I will not do is take the name of the Lord in vain. That is clearly wrong for me. I have been heard to say “Oh my God,” though, and for some reason that doesn’t feel as wrong as using the name of Jesus in vain.
How do other Christians handle this issue?
This is weird. Just yesterday I was telling Mr. Gretchen that I must stop swearing so much. You see, I work in a concrete factory with 150 guys, and the language is a little coarse around there. No one blinks if you swear in a meeting or even (not making this up) in written correspondence (only within the office). I also go to school part time, and when I caught myself raising my hand in class and using the word “shit” in a question to the professor, I realized that I had a problem.
So, the new and improved Miss Gretch for 2001:
- Stop swearing!
- Get some exercise! (see also “getting in shape” thread)
Very little. I was raised in a household where bad language was not tolerated under any circumstances, and I find that now as an adult, I still don’t use it.
One place I worked, we were doing database searches (converting a university card catalog to machine-readable format by looking for matches to the cards in a CD-ROM database). Sometimes we would think we found a “match” only to find a difference in the details that meant no match. Sometimes we found nothing at all. And so we would voice our frustrations verbally. The strongest utterance heard from me: “Ah, crud.” The others would (good-naturedly) pick on me for not using stronger language.
BTW, these others were all women.
This comes in handy, though. Once sitting around shooting the breeze with friends, one of them said something to me (don’t remember what) that I thought was uncalled for, an insult. I responded by telling him to “f*ck off”. The room went dead quiet at that point, everyone else sitting there with stunned disbelief as they had never heard such language coming from me. The target of my epithet himself didn’t say another word for at least ten minutes… 
I guess the message is, I use it so infrequently that on the rare occasions that I do, it has quite an effect…
I am an inveterate curser. I can curse fluently in three languages and to a certain extent in three others.
I rarely swear, simply because those words
are too overused. What does the F word
mean anyway.
At work, when I start swearing, everyone
leaves cause they know I’m going off. Give
me some space to calm down.
My neighbors have a 7 year old son who I’ve
known all his life. They swear in front of
him and his 3 year old sister all the time
(her favorite word makes me believe she’s
supporting Dubya for President). I told him
once to “stop being so damn hardheaded,” and
he was shocked that I used a swear word. We
had a discussion about swear words and
really bad words.
In front of my parents? Rarely, but if necessary, “shit” will pop out when applicable (read: if I’m stressed or exceedingly pissed). “Fuck” came out one time, and one time only, when I was going insane from a healing sunburn. Are we all familiar with the maddening itch that can accompany that? My entire back had been lobster-fried, and when it began to heal, the itch was enough to drive me batty. I called my mom in near hysterics, saying something to the effect of, “It won’t stop, it won’t fucking stop, how do I make it stop?” I actually wound up in tears.
In front of grandparents? Hell no.
At work? Yes, but I have to be very, very careful. I am an elementary school teacher, after all. Swearing is limited to the lounge (and even in there, I’m very careful) and to private, after-hours conversations with other teachers.
I do not remember the first time I swore. Like most people, I started right around 6th grade/junior high. I cleaned up during my college years (private Christian university, and all), but am pretty free with the words now, at least with DeathLlama. We use “fuck” more for humorous effect than serious swearing.
I rarely swear on this MB, mainly because I believe it is overdone around here and usually unnecessary (at least in the Pit). But, I do swear of course.
People cussing has no real effect on me, although I might find it a bit annoying when it seems to be the staple of a person’s vocabularly.
Yeah, I cuss. I’ve been putting on the top-3 of my New Years Resolutions for a few years now, but it’s never really taken hold.
I never really used to cuss at work, but once I started in a factory, well, I do now. I switching to tech-consulting in a few weeks, I don’t think I’ll be doing it there.
In front of my parents, yes, but I always have that split second of “whoa, are you about to…yup, you sure did say that in front of them” but I rarely say more than one or two words at a time, as opposed to…
When I was in the Marines, it was interesting: when I was around the officers, no problem; but around the enlisted, every third or fourth word was unneccessary. I thought of it as speaking to the lowest common denominator (I should note that I was enlisted, not commissioned). It was rought, too, when I would go home after the Marines, because I invariably found myself cursing much more in casual situations than I had before.
Around other peoples parents or my grandparents, no.
Around children, sometimes when I don’t realize they are there, but I’ve been lucky, I think, not to have let more than a “Damn” slip.
It was number two on the Resolutions list this year, I’m working on it.
I don’t swear much except when I’m around a certain group of friends. We all studied in Spain together, and after a few months of speaking English only with each other, we developed a dialect of our own – kind of a strange mix of English, Spanish, Valenciano, and private jokes. It made rather liberal use of the F-word and the J-word*.
We had a reunion in Chicago two years later and almost immediately slipped back into the same mode of speaking (attracting many, many strange looks).
Haven’t seen any of them in a couple of years, I’m sorry to say, and it looks like it may never happen again. Most of my current acquaintances express considerable surprise when they hear me swear for the first time, which I’ve never quite understood. I don’t think I do it that rarely, but since I’m a grad student and have a slightly strait-laced look about me, I guess they’re not really expecting it from me.
*Joder