It's ok to swear according to CNN

horseless carriage said:
Tourette's syndrome is a condition that causes a person to make involuntary sounds and movements called tics. It usually starts during childhood, but the tics and other symptoms usually improve after several years and sometimes go away completely. There's no cure for Tourette's syndrome but treatment can help manage symptoms.

Here in the UK habitual use of profanities has been given the name Tourettes, the involuntary sounds and movements have been replaced by swearing. Apparently, "victims" are unaware of their condition. No comment.

The occasional cuss can be a tension reliever, our doctor, a lady through and through, was working with my wife. The doctor was on the call out system, my wife had made her a hot drink and the doctor spilt some onto her dress. "FFS," the doctor said, "I'm going out after I have finished my shift, now I shall have to go home and change." The doctor and my wife are good friends, the doctor knew my wife well enough to give vent to her annoyance without my wife disapproving. As my wife said, "when you have cleaned up the puke in the ambulance of yet another drunk, sometimes it takes the patience of Job not to swear. (Job, as in the bible, pronounced Jobe.)

It was a catholic priest, of all people that told me of the origin of the "F" word. Back in the days when adultery was forbidden by law, those caught committing this heinous crime were said to be: "Found Under Carnal Knowledge." Whether that's contrived or not I don't know, but it is plausible in that the adulterers were all incarcerated together and known as F***ers.
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There's a huge difference between just saying cuss words and the swearing that people with Tourette's do. The reason people with TS get labelled as such is because people see all this stuff on the internet about the swearing alone. And people being people automatically assume we all do it. It's ridiculous. But people mock what they don't understand.
 

I love the f-word. It fits any and all occasions. A verb, a noun, an adjective.............and as I said before, in my childhood a person could be arrested (!) for saying it, so I always use it with honor & respect. ;)
 

Being a war baby, I grew up in a time and environment where swearing (or some other transgression) would get you acquainted with a pussy willow switch, razor strap, belt or soap mouthwash. It just wasn't worth it and I never swore much.
 
Pepper said:
I love the f-word. It fits any and all occasions. A verb, a noun, an adjective.............and as I said before, in my childhood a person could be arrested (!) for saying it, so I always use it with honor & respect. ;)
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You will like this then. "F.... the draft". I have this case in my head I'll share. It fits the occasion. :) 1st AM case. Charge dismissed.

https://www.oyez.org/cases/1970/299
 
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I took great lengths to refrain from swearing when raising my two girls, but even though they don’t swear in my company now they are adults, I know they both swear like troopers in normal conversation. So why did I bother? :)
 
Swearing, like any other form of language can be creative, expressive and funny. Or it can be lazy and monotonous. It can be offensive and confronting but so can ordinary English expressions.

I began to question why some words are considered swearing when I was doing a demonstration dissection of a rat in front of a class of slower learners.

"See these lumps", I said. "They are the faecal pellets".

Blanks looks and silence.

"Poo", I elaborated.

They laughed but they understood.

I then thought that if faeces, poo and sh*t are all words for the same thing, why is one considered a swear word but not the other two? A lot of swearing has its roots in religion, in particular christianity. An old word, 'struth, was considered a swear word because it is blasphemous (God's truth). Similarly 'bloody' is a reference to the blood of Christ and was once considered to be very offensive. Damn! and Hell! were once thought of as offensive. I don't think anyone is offended by these expressions today.

The F word is just a word for copulation or sexual intercourse. IMO it only becomes offensive when it is used in anger, as in "F you! " It can be used as a qualifier - compare halfwit and f*ckwit. Both could be offensive or not depending on the context.

Australians have always had a reputation for swearing. Such language was not generally used in the presence of ladies. This poem, published in 11 December 1898 in The Bulletin, was considered pretty outrageous in it day. In this poem most of the missing words, indicated by ---- , are 'bloody' and the last word of each verse is 'bugger'. To make it worse, it can be sung to the tune of Onward Christian Soldiers. Needless to say, it was a popular marching song for Aussie soldiers in WW I.


The sunburnt ---- stockman stood
And, in a dismal ---- mood,
Apostrophized his ---- cuddy;
"The ---- nag's no ---- good,
He couldn't earn his ---- food -
A regular ---- brumby,
----!"

He jumped across the ---- horse
And cantered off, of ---- course!
The roads were bad and ---- muddy;
Said he, "Well, spare me ---- days
The ---- Government's ---- ways
Are screamin' ---- funny,
----!"

He rode up hill, down ---- dale,
The wind it blew a ---- gale,
The creek was high and ---- floody.
Said he, "The ---- horse must swim,
The same for ---- me and him,
Is something ---- sickenin',
----!"

He plunged into the ---- creek,
The ---- horse was ---- weak,
The stockman's face a ---- study!
And though the ---- horse was drowned
The ---- rider reached the ground
Ejaculating, "----!"
"----!"
 
Using bad language is appropriate when the occasion demands it, but we mustn't make it the norm. Too many children are using the 'f' word because they think it makes them seem grown-up and 'with it'.
Decent society is already being eroded, we must fight to stop the rot going any further.
 
ohioboy said:
At least it wasn't Buggery. o_O
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Buggery was a place when I was a child. One of the neighbour's children turned up on our doorstep with a stray kitten. He had brought it home and his mother told him to "Get to buggery and take the cat with you!"

My mum used to joke that our house must be "Buggery". I assume that Buggery is a very cat friendly place because not one was ever turned away at our house.
 
Warrigal said:
Depends on context. Words can have more than one meaning. My mother would never have used any word with a sexual meaning in front of us girls. She referred to sex as "monkey business", even when a pair of dogs were going at it.
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That's what you call Two pigs having sex "Makin bacon".

Did NOT mean to infer what your mother meant by my definition, sorry if it came across that way.
 
Rosemarie said:
Using bad language is appropriate when the occasion demands it, but we mustn't make it the norm. Too many children are using the 'f' word because they think it makes them seem grown-up and 'with it'.
Decent society is already being eroded, we must fight to stop the rot going any further.
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Good point Rosemarie. Being the general manager, the one in charge, using any sort of bad language and by that I mean more than a profanity, is inexcusable. For example if someone needed to be disciplined I would never use a term like, you idiot. The way to get a result from the miscreant is to outline exactly what they did, ask why they did it and if confronted with a pack of lies, pull apart their fictional defence with the evidence that brought them into the hearing in the first place.

Such times were rare though, more often than not a quick metaphoric slap is all that's needed. Most of the staff that I was responsible for were delivery drivers. Their's is a tough job with scant reward, I would always take a complaint against one with a pinch of salt. However, when drivers are using profanities, answering in the same way can carry some kudos. When I was being told some sort of fanciful fairy tale as a cover up, I would let the frames of my glasses slide down my nose and peer a disbelieving stare over the top of the rim, straight into the eyes of the miscreant. It was a trick that I learned from my headmaster back in my schooldays. You could see the physical discomfort that such an action afforded. Most would buckle and admit their wrong doing, I would tell them that I will be documenting it and it would go on their record and that would be the end of it.

But you always get some with bravado who will try to brazen it out, resulting in yet more fanciful baloney, to which I would reply: "You ****ing what?" It always got the result because the staff all knew that I wouldn't swear and I would have all the evidence, so the use of a profanity was to emphasise, in language that they all used every day.

On one such occasion a driver was telling me some fairy story or other, he had used his van to run the children to school, it wasn't allowed because of our insurers stipulation, but he was denying it. My glasses slid down my nose, the stare napalmed him and before either of us said anymore, a group of workers, seeing me about to speak, all said in unison: "You ****ing what?" Being predictable has it's pitfalls.
 
When we were kids & one of us would swear, our mom would say, "Hey, I don't want to hear those words." She'd say the same thing to our dad when he swore.
But she swore in Arabic, & she knew we didn't know what the words meant when we were kids. But later, when I asked her European brothers & sisters what those words meant, they opened their eyes WIDE & had SHOCKED looks on their faces. They said we were too young to know what those words meant. When they asked where we heard them & we said "From Mom," they were even MORE shocked & said, "Don't ever say those words when you're anywhere in the Middle East." (It's some type of evil curse on the person's parents - using the equivalent of our "F" word and female body parts.)

Later, after we found out what those words meant (they were even worse than "American swear words,") we confronted our mom with the information & she got really mad & said, "Oh, SHUT UP!" :ROFLMAO:
 
win231 said:
Maybe from a pharmaceutical company that's testing a drug to prevent swearing? Or a vaccine?
When they advertised for paid volunteers for the study, hundreds of truckers showed up.
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My husband once said I was a lying sack of s__t. I found it not only vulgar but demeaning as well. Of course he was an effing a_hole so what do you expect?
 
Judycat said:
My husband once said I was a lying sack of s__t. I found it not only vulgar but demeaning as well. Of course he was an effing a_hole so what do you expect?
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He probably didn't know there were nicer ways of saying "I don't believe you."
When my ex wife lied to me, I'd say:
"Honey, you remind me of a Lilac."
She'd say, "Ooooh, that's so romantic of you to say I remind you of a beautiful flower."
I'd say, "No. You can Lilac anything."
 
win231 said:
He probably didn't know there were nicer ways of saying "I don't believe you."
When my ex wife lied to me, I'd say:
"Honey, you remind me of a Lilac."
She'd say, "Ooooh, that's so romantic of you to say I remind you of a beautiful flower."
I'd say, "No. You can Lilac anything."
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He was also a trucker.
 
Years ago, I remember hearing someone say "the mouth speaks what the heart is full of." I thought it was rather profound and was contrite and pretty good for a while but it didn't last long. :)
 

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