I’ve certainly seen what would have been an innocuous question here opened with WTF. Noe since none of us read that as W - T- F, that counts as an expletive in my book and it was absolutely unnecessary.
rhubarbrin says "I have a large and expressive vocabulary: sprinkling in fuck, shit, bitch, damn, piss, cunt, [etc.] t keep me from using the rest of it. "
Certainly it does, unless you simply use much longer sentences by adding in expletives. If you substitute an expletive for some other part of your “large and expressive vocabulary” you have kept yourself from utilizing some more appropriate and very likely more accurate term.
My particular pet peeve is the phrase “That sucks.” which has become usable in family situations with the approval of the FCC. “That sucks” does not imply a vacuum or some unidentifiable abhorrent circumstance. Just as with WTF, we all know what it means.
I left working in industrial and then automotive jobs to work in a law office. Among the best things aboiut it still is that I don’t hear foul language all day long.
I’ve found the same thing, both socially and at work. If I swear at work, the people around me reallize I really do mean it, and I’m truly angry about something. That’s what I think most people that swear all the time don’t reallize. If you use Fuck every other word, I’m going to tune it out, and the affect is lost on me. Use it in a few well places occasions, and you will have my attention.
As for why? I think a lot of it does have to do with religion. I can’t imagine my grandmother swearing about anything, and my grandfather - maybe if he was taking down a tree and if fell on his car. They poor country folks, so nothing fancy. But swearing was just not done, especially in public, and would recieve dirty looks for those around you, and punishment from grandma.
It would be interesting to see a chart of frequency of swearing vs frequency of church/synagog/temple attendence.
I know this is silly, but this is something that bothers me. I’m pretty much against swearing myself (have been raised that way), and it seems as though the addition or utilization of expletives make many jokes “funnier” in a way. It’s as though not using swear words makes me less amusing in general.
I don’t know what an “average” post is, however it seems to me the posts written by obviously well educated, perhaps professionals, contain fewer expletives than otherwise. So does better education/grammar equal fewer expletives?
Perhaps my use of the words “it amuses my co-workers” misled you, then. Usually, I try to not swear at all at work, and if I do, it’s not in the context of a joke, it’s more an expression of happiness (“fuck, yeah, we won that project!”) or dismay (“oh, fuck, that’s not good.”).
Ignorance defeated. Bam! There you go, you opposing m— f— c— s— s— o-- b–a–h’s!
There are are more important things than debating whether to say “poop” versus “s—.” I mean, who declared war on synonyms? And much thanks to the OP for bringing this subject up!!!.
Hey, wait a goddamn minute. I’m getting old, and I curse like a fucking sailor.
That said, I do think my generation and older—let’s say 50 and up—are more likely to consider who’s in earshot and moderate our language accordingly. That’s not because young people are less considerate or less articulate but because they’ve grown up in a society that is generally more accepting of public profanity. If you get your mouth washed out with soap often enough (Really Ma? Fels Naphtha?) you learn to look around for people who will be offended by your language.
My favorite post on the subject was by Penn Jillette, who has never troubled himself overly much with avoiding offending people. He wrote a thing for Excite, but sadly it is no longer on his web site, but I did find it on another forum.
[QUOTE=Penn]
I’ve stopped swearing. I’m 42 years old and from the time I was 16, I talked like carnies and rockers and truckers and sailors. I tried to talk like all the cool people, using obscenity for every part of speech. It seemed like a ticket into a special group of outsiders. I never used hard obscenity on stage, but I was always trying to slip expletives onto the radio (you do know that the FCC is unconstitutional on every front, right?). But in daily existence, I talked trash.
…
I had an epiphany – I realized no one thought I was talking like a carney. They thought I was talking like a mall kid. Nowadays, who knows how carnies talk? It’s like tattoos. They used to mean you were on the bally, in the joint, or on the sea. Now, tattoos and swearing just mean you’ve been to Tower Records. Even mall T-shirts proclaim the magic word.
…
My decision to stop swearing is not a moral position. It’s not to be polite. It’s not to fit in. Quite the opposite. It makes me say what I mean and that’s often not polite. Not swearing takes my rants off auto-pilot. Not swearing makes me think. It gives those words their original magic in their literal meanings. It makes them sexier when I’m talking about sex.
Well…I meant that comment beyond the context of a joke as well; sprinkling statements with a swear or two generally seems to make the statement more amusing / humorous, and choosing not to adopt that can make you look…outdated.
I mean, if you replaced the above profanities with “hell” and “darn”, the statements would carry a lot less impact. Swear words seem to be special in that way.
My Mom used to say, “Stop using those words. It shows you have a limited vocabulary.”
To which I would retort, “On the contrary. My vocabulary is the same as yours, plus some words that you won’t use. So mine is less limited.”
In the society I find myself in today (not by choice), who are mostly crotchety old [del]fucks[/del] folks, even a single use of “fuck” is considered an unforgivable sin, especially if women are present. An ordinary conversation like many on SDMB is absolutely not their kind of communication. So I think it’s the social environment that makes all the difference.
I remember way back in the 1960s when I was in either 1st or 2nd grade, one of my classmates had his mouth washed out with soap and water in front of the whole class - we had a sink in the classroom.
I guess he must have said a ‘naughty word’ but doing that to a child has to be more obscene than whatever it was he said.