Not all taboos are pointless. There are very good reasons for not using some words.
Intensifiers like “fuck” are not in the same ballpark as insults, and certainly nowhere near racial slurs.
Yes, that’s how we feel today. It’s the opposite of how we felt 60 years ago.
Right now I’m wondering when “AF” became a common, safer way to say “as fuck”.
Ephron is right, and she’s right in a way that only someone who lived inside the etiquette regime of mid-century America could be. People did not say “fuck” casually in 1960. They knew the word, of course. They just understood that language was a form of social signaling, and certain signals were reserved for closed rooms. Mixed company mattered. Women mattered. Appearances mattered…
Hollywood mattered because it set the model. From 1934 to 1968, the Production Code banned vulgar language. When ratings replaced it, profanity wasn’t stigmatized, it was legitimized as “adult.” Movies didn’t just reflect speech, they normalized it.
Cultural background matters here, too. I have French and Italian roots, and in both cultures profanity has long been less about sexual shock and more about emotional emphasis or religious irreverence. Neither culture invested as heavily in the idea that women must be linguistically pure. American norms were unusually strict, especially in Anglo-Protestant contexts. What feels like a dramatic moral collapse to Ephron is, from a Mediterranean perspective, a rebalancing. Less performance. Less pretending…
The working classes have always sworn like, well, sailors. And the upper classes have always done so when not in mixed company.
If I were to guess wildly at why it subsided somewhat in the 19th century, it was due to the rise in the middle classes wanting to appear more genteel than the filthy working oiks they felt themselves better than, and more in line with the nobility they aspired to (although as noted the nobility could be pretty vulgar in private). Whereas having a sizable portion of the male population of the US go off to war for a few years in the early- and mid-20th century likely resulted in a coarsening of language again.
But that’s all just speculation.
Anyway, if you want some absolutely filthy songs for you and your friends to sing at parties, I can recommend this book of 17th-century catches (or rounds, if you prefer). They’re not all dirty but the C-word does make an appearance or two.
People don’t type it to be safe. It’s an abbreviation like any other abbreviation. It’s quicker to type fewer letters.
I’ve heard people say “WTF” aloud, which is funny because that takes longer to say than “What the Fuck”. Then again, people still waste a syllable saying “VW”.
I was thinking just that. They had censors in those days, and certain things simply weren’t allowed on the silver screen. I believe the momentous line was, “Quite frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Racy stuff back then.
As one columnist pointed out in the late 90s, it takes three times more syllables to say “www” than “World Wide Web.”
OK, I don’t have the movie name, but there is a recently discovered ‘lost’ silent film that airs occasionally on TCM. It was by a Black filmmaker, and unfortunately I don’t recall the chap’s name, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Oscar Micheaux.
Anyway, according to one of the hosts on TCM, in one exchange a lip-reader claimed that the actor repeatedly dropped the F-bomb. This would have been 1910s, I think.
I grew up in the 50s/60s. My parents didn’t use profanity around me, other than a ‘damn’ or ‘hell’. My mother would say “shite”. I have no idea how they talked when only among other adults. I don’t recall a lot of cursing amongst my peers, although there must have been some, especially in my later teens.
My views on cursing are complicated.
Raised by a foul mouthed Marine. I heard the “F” word early. And many more.
I have a hoodie I wear any where I want that has big graphic scrawl across the front, “Needy AF” no one has ever said anything. I know people read my words on shirts and hoodies because I have one that says “surely not everyone was Kung Fu fighting"
I get comments and giggles when I wear it.
I draw a big big line at calling people nasty names with added intensefiers and “F” bombs.
Name calling is juvenile and IMO wrong. In any setting and in any age or era.
I believe it always has been.
I think vile name calling is the next to last step before throwing hands starts. And then it’s violence. If not de-escalated can go real sideways.
If you call the slow person walking and blocking your progress a “fucking idiot” under your breath as you finally get by. You are the problem.
Choose your words. There’s a reason Mother always said “kind words carry weight”
Personally, I actually say few words out loud. I prefer them to be nice ones.
I stutter but it’s funny I can get a “fuck you” out with no stumble or slide. I do get the little shocks and alarms, so I have said it. I’m deeply ashamed everytime I have.
My oldest brother loves the fuck bomb.
He gets around it, if say, he bumps his head by saying “fuck ME!” I laughed everytime I heard it.
The first upright caveman who tripped over a dino bone and hurt his toe and sung out a string of ugh! ?#$&+)-&@#!! Had a reason, I suppose.
ETA..putting mother in front of your f-bomb is even more nasty.
The following is the impression I get from female relatives in my parents’ and grandparents’ generations:
Among middle class people, before World War Two, using the F word in public was an act of sexual harassment, decades before the term had been coined.
If you were female, and a male stranger used the word in public, you worried about your physical safety if he ever caught you in private.
My understanding is that what constitutes a curse word is a reflection on what the culture considers sacred and taboo.
So maybe 100+ years ago, religious references were swear words. Hell, damn, god damn, jesus christ, etc.
Then it became about sex organs. Shit, piss, cunt, fuck, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits
now modern swear words are about demeaning and degrading marginalized groups. Nigger, kike, faggot, zipperhead, towelhead, sand nigger, retard, etc.
If you want to see how people react to modern swear words, just use one of the modern swear words and see how people react. That would be the modern 7 things you can say on TV.
Ironically slurs against marginalized groups were much more accepted decades ago, but slurs based on religion and sex were strictly prohibited. Now that has inverted as cultural values have changed.
Its interesting when it comes to women though. You can say bitch, whore, twat, etc but cunt is still pretty taboo, at least in the US. Not as much in the UK or Australia.
I consider all those words demeaning to women, so if your point is that people still feel free to demean women, then point made.
ETA: Just a memory. I had a good friend, generally a progressive guy, who called his wife (an ardent feminist) cunt in the middle of an argument. When he told us he was in extreme trouble we were unanimously like, “What the hell were you thinking?” He’s like, “I didn’t know! It’s a whole thing apparently!” She eventually forgave him but that still makes me laugh. Before you judge too harshly be aware that some people are really irreverent with language. They both were, he just crossed a line he didn’t realize he was crossing. RIP.
We have three children, and I had a “no cussing” rule in our house; neither me, my wife, or the children could use foul language. Sorry, I just… didn’t like it and didn’t want to hear it. Anyway, our oldest daughter would say “What the fudge” on occasion. Clever. 
A TV host just lost their job for saying fart nigger.
https://medium.com/the-polis/hgtv-host-nicole-curtis-loses-job-over-racial-slur-03f6d01c4e08
I guess this is the modern equivalent of ‘frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn’
I am more of a “fork” and person… And occasionally fork up.
Sometimes an offensive statement is so baffling you end up too confused to be offended.
I mean, it’s still bad and suggests that the n-word is in her regular vocabulary but seriously, what the hell.