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  • Swearing is actually normal for all people. Any word can be classified as a "swear" or "bad" word. That's how language works. There is nothing wrong with using a word that is deemed a cuss word. The actual "bad" part is always the context the word is used in. If you smacked your foot into a chair accidentally and you called the chair a Bastard, you used the expletive correctly. But if you walked into work one morning and walked by your boss and said to him, "Good morning you Bastard.", that's going to get you in trouble. The context matters.

    You can make any word a cuss word in the context you use it. You can ask a person if they like Bananas, "Are you a banana eater?". Or you can accuse a person, "What kind of a sick banana eater are you? What is wrong with you?", 'banana eater' is now a bad phrase/thing.

    Context in language always matters, regardless of the taboo of a word/phrase.

    Words only have power over you if you let them. Language is to be used, enjoyed and laughed at.

    • You can't entirely remove a word from it's main meaning and there's a reason all popular swear words are negative or taboo things, fuck, damn, hell etc

      • Well gosh darnit the study of etymology is gonna want a word (hehe) with you. a removed used to be an old unpleasant woman who was like baggage, as difficult to carry around as a bundle of sticks which was also called a removed. Brits smoke fags.

        Literally is another example. Through use, it now has a secondary definition which is exactly the opposite of its primary one. (figurative, emphasis)There are less popular examples but your premise as i understand it is just wrong friend

  • I've read that swearing is the sign of an honest person.

    Studies have shown that swearing makes dealing with pain easier.

  • Because life fucking sucks, unless I'm in a church I'll swear all the fuck I want, life is tortuous enough already, let me have that. And right now I'm angry.

  • Why do some people hide their view on things behind rhetorical questions? People, man. There's a billion different ways to people it up. People man ...Being all different n stuff!

  • They are used to it and if you try you can get used to it too.

  • I love that especially in the land of free speech swearing is so much frowned upon. Exactly my kind of humour.

  • Hey! Not sure if anyone's still here, but here's a serious answer:

    TL;DR: everyone perceives swear words differently, and swearing can be used for purposes other than to insult someone directly

    Swear words serve a purpose in language just like every other word. People, or at least many English speaking people that I've encountered, tend to consider rude language/swearing to be superfluous speech, words that can and in some cases should, be removed from the language. That's a misconception. The point and purpose of swear words is to be taboo and rude. If these words didn't exist, they would likely be substituted by something else, because from a sociolinguistic perspective, our society right now has evolved to need a linguistic way to express the things that are conveyed with swearing, even if it's really bad things like racism, disdain, threats of violence.

    Now, one of the interesting things about swear words and rude language in general is that everyone perceives these words with a different severity. Some people feel comfortable with saying "cunt" for one reason or another. For example, Australian and British English speakers tend to be more comfortable with that word than American English speakers. For other people, even minced oaths can be considered rude, such as saying "darn" instead of "damn" or "fiddlesticks" instead of "fuck". It could also have to do with background or identity, like women calling each other "removed" can be considered less severe than a man calling a woman a "removed". Or someone who's deeply religious could object to the use of "hell" while someone who isn't might not even consider it rude.

    Lets get back to the purpose of swearing. Swearing can have many different uses, such as showing you're part of an in group. Imagine a group of women working in a auto body shop together for example. In order to signal to each other that they're comfortable around each other, they might refer to each other as their "removed". But that doesn't mean that a customer can come in and say "hey removed I need new headlights": they're not part of the group, they haven't earned that privilege. Swearing is also a rite of passage. Adults get to swear, but we consider a sign of a good upbringing in the English speaking world as a child that does not swear. Throughout all these uses, there's a through line of flaunting social expectations. Swearing can be used to damage and berate and humiliate, of course, but a lot of swearing is done with subtext. "Hey, you're my friend, this is a relaxed environment, of course you're not going to think when I say a rude word that I'm insulting you" or "I'm feeling such a strong emotion right now that the only words that fit that are very rude".

    I also think that as our society moves away from more structured and rigid social roles, swearing is getting more acceptable since we in general are more tolerant of deviations from the norm.

    Edit: I've obviously only scratched the surface, since this is a broad and complex topic.

  • Because swearing was strictly forbidden in my household and i picked it up in late high school and early college partially as an act of defiance.

    I made friends also more interested in content and quality of thought than on politeness and that was dope AF.

    Now it's part of my lexicon, just a casual turn of phrase.

    "Ay yo, that shit is fire" conveys the same sentiment as "Wow! That's really cool."

    I'm a mechanical engineer and a writer. Words are words. They have meanings and those meanings change over time and with context/audience.

    People who don't ever swear feel repressed to me. It's a weird vibe. Not a fan.

117 comments