This has been a question I have pondered for some time. It seems that more and more people are using expletives simply as a matter of conversation. Mind you, I am no prude and I can certainly understand letting an F-bomb fly if, for example, you hit your finger with a hammer. However, when it is totally uncalled for like “Would you pass the f’ing peas?” seems a bit over the top. I can somewhat understand the occasional use of an expletive when one is trying to emphasize a point while speaking. “That was the damnedest thing I have ever seen”.
I have noticed many expletives in the questions asked on this forum, where there does not seem to be any reason at all to justify their use… especially since this is written, as opposed to spoken. Perhaps they are simply place holders for those who do not have the vocabulary to express themselves otherwise.
You don’t say how old you are or in what country or what class or social circles you move in, and all of those affect public language use.
As a general rule I don’t believe that using expletives in conversation has changed greatly. There are many old expressions that refer to groups of people who “swear like a” solider or a sailor or fishwife or a dockworker. There were rules and sanctions against using these words in print so the references were indirect but they exist for all classes. George Washington was famed for the blueness of his language and his cursing out a soldier was legendary to behold. Similar references appear in biographies for half of all famous men, whether in the military or business or politics or whatever. Show biz types used lots of it. The lower classes were simply assumed to swear with every other word, although they were supposed to be on their best behavior with their social betters.
The real change is that the notion of social betters has largely vanished, so the words are used more in public. Even that is situational. Literally so, because you’re far more likely to hear them in public conversation in New York City than in the Midwest. Some social groups use them for effect, as a measure of power and intimidation, but this is nothing new either. Watch Deadwood, set in the 1870s, for a realistic plethora of expletives among men, but rare when women are present, whose creator says he did it for exactly the intimidation factor.
Since you can use these words on television and movies and books and records they seem more omnipresent than they were when they were artificially suppressed. But I flatly don’t believe there’s been any more than an incremental increase in society at large. It the confirmation effect that’s fucking up your judgment.
It really amazes me at this. I live in the city of Chicago and it’s quite common to hear “F-this” “F-that” from everyone, black, white, Latino, male, female.
A week ago I was out in the NW Suburbs at Woodfield Mall and I had to comment to my friend, absolutely no one, not even the teens were cursing.
I think it’s the environement. People will curse if they feel it’s an appropriate place to.
It’s the style of the times, and of certain subcultures, and I am happy using foul language isn’t any big thing to many people these days. I have a large and expressive vocabulary: sprinkling in fuck, shit, bitch, damn, piss, cunt, and hell (and my favorites, motherfucker and son of a bitch) doesn’t keep me from using the rest of it.
I’m in my late 20s, live in a large city (Philadelphia), don’t work in a professional or conservative environment and am generally a liberal, unconventional kind of person; of course all that has a lot to do with it. I think in curse words but in certain places/around certain people I am able to restrain their usage.
I was raised by a religious, conservative mother who punished us for using the Lord’s name in vain and reprimanded us for saying ‘darn’. Rebellion might have something to do with it too.
True story: One of my first dinners at home with my family after boot camp, I asked for the fucking potatoes. My brother spit out his milk, my g/f kicked me under the table, and my mom pretended not to notice. Granted, that was just conditioning. I am no longer in the habit of cursing at my food.
As far as ‘excess’ foul language…I rarely hear expletives in an enviornment where they aren’t appropriate. Around here, I think it’s fucking appropriate.
I used to swear, a lot. Part of it was that, up until two years ago, I worked in a advertising agency, which is one of the most casual, vulgar office environments I’ve ever seen, and swearing was a sort of art form.
A few years ago, I became good friends with someone, and discovered that, while she didn’t mind swearing in general, she was really bothered by blaspheming (i.e., taking the Lord’s name in vain). I started watching myself in that regard, mostly because I valued her friendship, and didn’t like making her uncomfortable.
Once I conquered that one, I decided to expand my experiment, and cut back on the casual swearing entirely. That took a while, but I’ve largely gotten it out of my system. I will, on occasion, still drop a few choice curses – it amuses my new co-workers when I do it, because they had quickly come to realize that I don’t swear as a rule, and so, when I do drop an F-bomb, it really does get their attention.
You really think, after reading the average post on this board, that these people don’t have the vocabulary to express themselves? Lamest criticism of foul language, ever, and it’s brought up regularly here. Only to be shot down, of course. Would you be comfortable wth calling someone a doody-head? How about ‘meanie’? Why are those better vocabulary or more expressive than ‘cuntlapper’? Personally, I appreciate the colorfulness of ‘cuntlapper’; it conveys the speakers/writers absolute contempt, but it’s also humorous.
In short, and I think folks will be with me on this, I’d rather see a cuntlapper than a doody-head.
I’m making the case that the *amount *of swearing was realistic. Whether the individual words were correct to the time period doesn’t matter for this argument.
