I got in big trouble once for calling someone a “little bugger”. I had no idea at the time that bugger was a bad word.
We didn’t say poop and we didn’t say butt, and those were some of the worst words I knew. My dad would very occasionally say damn or hell in our presence, but it earned him an instantaneous “Father!” or “Clarence!” and we knew he shouldn’t have said it. So did he. I don’t remember when I first heard some of the others, but at college I had a neighbor in the dorm who used that kind of language regularly and I was shocked every time for a while. A couple of times during my adolescence I heard a small dammit from over by the sewing machine, and we knew something was going pretty wrong for Mom over there. We just didn’t use those words and neither did anybody else I knew. Man, I’m old.
My husband doesn’t swear in front of me or the kids, and we’ve never allowed the kids to use those words at home. (Doesn’t mean a thing about what he says when he’s with his friends, so I guess he hasn’t lost the use of them altogether.) We have loosened up a bit about things like ‘sucks’ now that the kids are older, and I won’t say much about anything they feel comfortable saying in front of me. I do look at 'em sideways sometime, though. We have allowed poop and pee and even, oh my gosh, butt, because it seems kind of silly not to.
My in-laws all have/had mouths like truck drivers, and it was really hard for them to remember to curb that in front of our kids. We asked my BIL not to swear around our son when he was little and got back an indignant, “Well, he’s going to hear it at school.”
And with all that, I was the one who taught our son to say damn when he was a toddler. We had a car that would die if you slowed down too soon after you started it, and a couple of times I said a small swear, under my breath. It died in a parking lot one day and from the carseat in back I heard, “Dammit car.” Didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
My father was a sailor, and even after he retired, he could and did curse a blue streak. Not at us, at least, but at situations and inanimate objects. I swear, I learned most of my impolite compound nouns whenever he stubbed a toe in my hearing. (bang “COCKSUCKER!” :eek: ) My mother, on the other hand, just doesn’t curse. If I hear her yell “damn!” or “shit!”, I come running to mop up the blood. The one time she said “fuck” in front of me, I nearly fell out of my chair, laughing in shock.
I didn’t start cursing at all until I was in fourth or fifth grade. I didn’t curse in front of my parents until I was in college. My father would just flinch every time I let a hearty word fly, but he never did try to argue me out of it. I think it was his discomfort added to my brothers’ contempt at the Little College Girl and Her Foul Mouth that led me to cut back.
In my personal life, I still curse occasionally, but not as much as I used to. As a teacher, I’ve learned to slip a filter into place, so that situations that used to get a fuck now get a “Oh, snot. Dirty socks. Mucus.” My students are usually baffled and then think I’m hysterically old fashioned.
is bugger actually a bad word in the US? If I heard a child call something a little bugger I wouldn’t think twice about it
Depends, do you deal with Brits often, or are you an ex-pat Brit? If so, a word that means “anal sex” counts. I agree, however, most Americans don’t think of that definition of the word.
They’re only words. No big deal.
My kids (8 and 10) have occasionally said “shit” and “fuck” in front of me. I remind them, and they fully know, that these are not polite words to use in public. They’ve caught me on occasion uttering a discouraging word, or two. Again, they are only words.
My parents didn’t swear around us that often when we were kids, but as we reached adulthood it became apparent that they were intimately familiar with all the school-yard expressions.
Kids just need to be taught that there’s a right place and a wrong place to use bad language. Saying “fuck” is not the end of the world. Saying it to your teacher might be however. 
Dad always swore like a madman.
Mom kept her, & our, mouths clean, but as the 70s changed to the 80s, we all got progressively more pottymouthed.
Mum would say “Shit” (and tell us we drove her to swearing), but I don’t recall ever hearing Dad swear as a kid.
Swearing at all, right into my early twenties, would earn me a sharp slap from Mum. It’s relaxed a lot these days and I can even (occasionally) use the F word now, as long as it’s infrequent. As a kid, “shit” and “bloody” (as in “Bloody Hell”) were swear words, “damn” and “hell” weren’t and “shut up” was forbidden for a period of time.
PK’s either swearthe most of anyone, or never swear. I am firmly in the former camp. Also I worked in investment banking for 7 years, which wrote the book on educated fuck speak.
My father was a WW2 and Korean theater combat vet. He can swear as well as anyone, but very rarely does. My parents say “hell” or “damn” occaisionally.
I’m much much better now in my 40’s about not swearing, and using euphemisms instead. But do catch myself at work sometime spewing out stuff that is more appropriate on a battlefield than a conference call.
None of my kids says any bad words in English. One summer trip, my oldest picked up “damn” from a cousin, but was nipped in the bud by his mortified Mom. My kids can say some utterly filthy things in Chinese. But I’m reasonably satisfied with myself that they have never picked up my truely gutter mouth (so far).
My parents in law are Irish though they live in the UK (as did Mrs Princhester-to-be when I first met her). They were a bit cool towards me when they first met me. Probably had an idea I might nick off with their daughter back to Oz. Perceptive of them.
Anyway, they are quite genteel in the home. But once I went with my prospective father in law to his shed to work on something (a car I expect). When we were down at the shed, he started swearing like a marine. I told Mrs Princhester-to-be afterwards and she was much relieved. She said it meant he’d relaxed and thought I was OK.
My parents did not pull “Do as I say not as I do” on me. So I did as they did. And boy was the air blue in our house.
Oddly, my dad once made a huge impression on me with an archaic curse. Or perhaps it was an epithet. At any rate, it would take too long to explain what led up to this, but his enunciation of “GREAT SCOT!” took me aback the way his multiple variations on “fuck” never did.
There was a progression. I’m not sure now whether my parents relaxed their own standards as the 1970s gave way to the '80s, or if they were adjusting to my age. All I know is, I was hearing “damn” and “hell” from birth, and by the time I was a tween, f-bombs were flying freely. I had never heard or read the phrase “fuck up” until my mom said it. I think I was 13.
And I think I was 12 the first time I cursed in my parents’ hearing*. We were driving somewhere, and since we’d left early, I fell asleep in the back seat almost immediately. When the car stopped, I asked where we were. My mom named a town that was not nearly as far from home as I’d hoped. “Shit.” Neither of them turned a hair.
*Except for the time I said “bitch” at a family gathering; that’s the anecdote my mom won’t let me live down. I’m almost certain I heard it from her, though.
Childhood = soap in the mouth, or grounding.
Adulthood = depending on where we’re at, no reaction to “hey, watch it”. So it goes.
I believe that there’s nothing wrong with swearing and getting all bent out of shape about it is fucking stupid. I know I’m one of the few who thinks that way. My 8 year old knows he is allowed to swear around me and that they are “home words” that even daddy doesn’t approve of so he shouldn’t use them elsewhere. He told me yesterday that he knows the worst swear and that it’s “cunt”. I told him, “That’s right, honey, but that’s not even a home word. It’s a car word.”
My sister reminds me of the time, when he was three or so, that she dared him to say “fuck” but he wouldn’t because he wasn’t at home but on his way to Wal*Mart.