Profanity?

[LostInTheMist]

How often do you use it in real life? I have friends who use it practically every sentence. (Okay, let's not call them friends. Let's call them "acquaintances".) I also have friends (real friends this time) who don't swear. Ever. At all. And I have a few who only swear when something bad happens in a game, board, card, or video. I don't swear a lot, and even less aloud to/at people. So when I do, people tend to take me seriously.

A lot of people consider profanity something bad, or something to always be avoided.

I find that, when you need to stress emphasis, profanity can be a useful tool to prove you are absolutely serious. (This is a [effing] problem guys!) Provided you don't use it ALL THE TIME.

So I guess, my question is: how often do you use profanity? And do you find it a useful tool when you do use it?

[Oniya]

The way I look at it, profanity is like salt.  It is not necessary, and can be replaced by other seasonings, but a little bit, used in the right places, can add flavor to speech/writing.  If used excessively, however, the end result is usually unpalatable.

[AmberStarfire]

The way I was raised amounted to 'it isn't ladylike to swear. If you do, people won't respect you'. Do I swear? Yes, sometimes, but I try not to overdo it.

I think there are a few angles when it comes to swearing that make a difference. I feel it's something you should have control over and its use should be a matter of choice, not 'accidental'. This amounts to its use at appropriate and useful times, but not because you don't know better/can't help it around certain situations/company. If you don't exercise control in its use, it can be seen as lower class or a sign of weakness, but almost everybody swears to some level and it's more common in some places/among some cultures and people than others.

If it's something you say all the time, it can lose its effectiveness and meaning. It becomes 'the way you talk', whereas if you don't normally swear, it adds more to your words or writing.

There are some people who look down on it, and some people who identify with it, and some people who like it. When I was a kid I was told 'don't listen to music with swearing in it and don't talk to people who do'. Music has changed quite a bit and so has the perception of these things. There's an element of going along with the status quo or not when it comes to profanity too, though depending on the situation, either swearing or not could go either way.

I just swear sometimes, and in some company. Hairy gets to hear it a lot. If I'm out, I avoid any and all swearing, especially around kids.

[Beguile's Mistress]

I agree it isn't ladylike or even the most intelligent use of language, however, I've been known to toss in the occasional invective to punctuate a statement when I want someone's attention.  It may slip out on occasion when I'm alone and startled or angered, too.  But, as has been said, using it too often diminishes its effectiveness and makes the speaker look ill-bread, doltish and small.

[Jag]

I don't swear often, but when I do, I can make bikers blush.

I really have nothing against swearing. I don't see it as unladylike. I think the idea behind that is actually kind of silly.

I have a friend who won't swear and there are people around her that try to get her to do it. I get upset with those people. Swearing is not a necessity. There is nothing wrong with those who use it or don't use it. Nor is there anything wrong if you use it for every other word in a sentence. If that is their personality and style of speech, then so be it.

[Blythe]

I use profanity often, with the exception of a few words that make me a bit uncomfortable. For the most part, I see it as a non-issue. It's something that I would view as unprofessional, but outside of a work environment, I have very little objection to it in my life. I like swearing in general and tend to be okay with it when others do it. I try to refrain from it if in the presence of kids, though, as some meanings of swearwords don't seem super appropriate to use around youngsters.

Personally, swearing to me only adds emphasis for humor or anger--I don't see it as adding any significant emphasis outside of those two things.

Adding emphasis, to me, is more a matter of conveying a certain tonal context rather than use of specific words.

[Mathim]

I generally use it whenever a conversation deals with something angry, agitating or aggressive, though given the nature of my existence between birth and today, that is unfortunately a great deal of what conversations revolve around. When I get really laid back, too, casual swearing just slips out as a reflex, it serves as a means of substituting for other more complicated words when I'm too lazy to put my full attention into a conversation or I just genuinely can't think of the word I want to use and either don't care to try to remember it or feel that it is an adequate substitute and that my conversation partners will understand my meaning.

But in summary, I swear a lot. Privately to myself (like when something in a videogame or something like gets on my nerves) or with conversation companions in environments where it can't be held against me (like in the workplace or other professional environments), unless I get REALLY frustrated, like if a store or other business has made some inexcusable pig's ear of something.

[Twisted Crow]

The way I look at it, profanity is like salt.  It is not necessary, and can be replaced by other seasonings, but a little bit, used in the right places, can add flavor to speech/writing.  If used excessively, however, the end result is usually unpalatable.

^ This.

[Sho]

I definitely swear casually, though I can turn it on and off depending on who I'm with. It really depends on the venue, though...or what the day is like. There are certain words I refuse to use under any circumstance because I find them vile, though.

...the word 'shitshow' gets used on a daily basis, however. Work can get stressful.

[la dame en noir]

I've started swearing a lot more than I normally did a few years ago. This is all because of anger and dealing with annoying crap daily. I see nothing wrong with curse words - but like everything else, if in excess it can be annoying and not healthy. I however, tend to get along better with people that do curse, than with people that are stuck up and tell me i'm not a lady because of my speech.

[Cryptogram]

I find I swear excessively when alone, but almost never when there's others around. It's not a conscious choice, I think it's just to do with anxiety - I self-censor so much around others that barely any words actually get out, let alone swears. Makes it awkward though when I thought I was alone and let our a ridiculous string of swears and then find that someone was actually within earshot.

[deadmanshand]

Cussing makes up a good 20 percent of my fucking vocabulary and that percentage climbs the more pissed off I get. My record during one particular rant was 42 fucks in a 3 minute period after being force to watch the first episode of the Janice Dickinson Agency. Now I don't have to cuss. I can be exceptionally eloquent and urbane when I choose to be but it's just that. When I choose to be. The rest of the time I just have no fucks to give about how people think about the manner of my speech.

[Stella]

I find the idea that some words are considered "bad" and some words "good" quite silly. However, I know there are people who are offended by certain words and I respect that.

I swear a fair bit. If I'm comfortable around someone and I know they're cool with it, then I'll use profanities pretty freely. It's just part of the conversation and usually utilised for emphasis.

I don't think the use of profanities says anything about a person's intellect.  I find it annoying if someone uses any word too liberally, profanity or not. Variety, please.

[ChefofDreams]

Being raised as I was I never swore in front of my parents, I did a little bit with friends, then when I went into the military I began to swear a lot more, now that I am out and I am working as a Chef and the previous military experience, I use the F-word like it is a comma but I try(fail) to not curse in front of my parents.

[DudelRok]

I... "swear" a lot with friends and family, but I try and keep it a little more "proper" around my girls parents, my boss, etc, but I... still... swear...

They are words that stuck, so be it. Consider it a part of my charm ... or don't.

The way I look at it, profanity is like salt.  It is not necessary, and can be replaced by other seasonings, but a little bit, used in the right places, can add flavor to speech/writing.  If used excessively, however, the end result is usually unpalatable.

Everything needs salt, just ask Gordon Ramsey. ;p

[Oniya]

Everything needs salt, just ask Gordon Ramsey. ;p

Gordon Ramsey is so salty

that the escargot just shriveled up.

[steelsmiter]

Profanity is my favorite part of human language, but I have such a significant lexicon that it's of no consequence for me to think of another word. As a result, I swear when I'm in pain, angry, or when it's important for a character to do so (and said importance can derive from a great variety of sources). For example, I am currently playing a character from a Visual Novel who doesn't always swear, but he does always seem to want to rant, so there's a good mix of obscene rants, and rants that aren't so obscene. And the occasional scene where he doesn't rant or get obscene. I'd like to get into more games, but my health would make them slow.

[Wolfling72]

I swear...so much. However; I've never tossed an inappropriate word around in front of small children nor do I curse in front of people MUCH older than me. I do not curse at work (EVER) and on the rare occasion when I feel the urge I scream things like "FUDGE!!" Works just as well and usually invokes laughter. I love the way cursing sounds, I do it often and well, inventing strings of random invective foulness whenever I want to underline just how much I loathe a person, place, object, thing.



I am a terrible person.

[GothicFires]

I use use profanity all the time. Even around my grandmother, much to my family's dismay. My philosophy is this... why should one word be bad when another word isn't even when it's used in the same context? I feel profanity is the intent of the moment not the exact language.

[Stone]

Profanity has become ineffective now because everyone's doing it. For a few decades it served as profound insult. For the past one or two it served as punctuation.

Now it's just filler. "I was really tired." "I was fucking tired." "I was really fucking tired."

Fuck got Taylor Swifted.

[Oniya]

Fuck got Taylor Swifted.

Although it does hold the distinction of being one of the few words that can be used as almost any part of speech. 

[Aislinn]

I generally feel that my view on profanity is rather antiquated. I rarely use it...and usually it's more in my mind or muttered under my breath to myself. I wasn't raised that way..(my parents use much more profanity then I ever have)....so I have no idea where my ideas on it came from. I can tolerate it in people around me to a certain extent but if someone uses it too much, I will distance myself from them. I have no desire to listen to it.

But then again....I realize that my views are in the extreme minority and I'm okay with that. It's just one of my pet peeves.

[steelsmiter]

Although it does hold the distinction of being one of the few words that can be used as almost any part of speech. 

My favorite of the ones mentioned by George Carlin is "shit".

[AmberStarfire]

I've been watching my way through Battlestar Galactica, and it's amusing how they use 'frack' or 'frak' so often. "Frack you," "motherfracker" etc. It was apparently in the original movie as well, but it let them get away with saying lots of things they probably wouldn't have been able to at the time it screened if that word was just a little different.

[Drake Valentine]

For the most part, daily. I just accept them now as just another word and hear them more than I use them.