Profanity

I watched an episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit about Profanity and In that episode, the woman who was against profanity was very, VERY stupid. She consider "holy cow" as a profane phrase and replaces it with "Santa Vaka". "Vaka" in spanish (I think), or "Baka" in filipino, means cow, and it doesn't take much to know that "Santa" is equal to "Saint", fairly equating to Holiness. Pretty much, she just said "Holy Cow" in anther language.

Also, in the end of the episode, she got pissed for some reason (don't remember, I was playing Monster Hunter while watching) and she ended up cursing and dissing the person she hates so much that it was irritating.

The ending remark of that episode is what I also abide too: "Its not how you say it, its all about what you are trying to say" or something like that. If the person in front of you is fine with profanity, then cool. If the person is not, then avoid cussing as much as possible.

Hate the message, not the words.

Like every other form of verbal expression, profanity thrives on intelligent and creative use of language, a skill which NOBODY EXCEPT FOR ME few enough people possess.

I have no qualms with coarseness. When in private, I speak as coarsely as a Whig and swear like a sailor, but none the less, I don't habitually use profanity in excess. I am coarse because in private I feel I have the right to call things by their name.

Excessive profanity doesn't bother me because it's profanity. It bothers me because it's excessive, like a verbal tic. Like someone ending every sentence in "you know what I'm saying?". It's fucking grating because it's repetitive as balls, god-damn trite and bloody boring, you know what I'm saying?

Profanity can be an efficient way to add emphasis, or humour. But profanity alone does not equal humour, and if you constantly emphasize every second word, the emphasis is lost.

But, I'd much rather speak with someone whose every second word is "fuck", as long as their IQ is above room temperature, than talking to an elegant and refined dullard.

In closing, I'm not sure whether it's a matter of generations. Perhaps it is for you anglo-americans. But for what it is worth, the most foul-mouthed person I have ever met, was my grand-mother. None of us teens could have even only dreamt to compete with the never-ending stream of military-grade expletives shooting forth from her mouth.

I do swear a lot, though I doubt it's not much of a surprise to anyone around here. My mom has a smart quick sharp mouth on her. She's mellowed down drastically since when I was younger, but growing up it just became normal to me.

However, I did not start cursing in front of my mother until I was 18, seriously - and that was an accident. I saw someone I knew in town when in the car and I said they were a fuckhead and she looked at me in shock because she never heard me curse in front of her before and I was scared shitless. I thought she was gonna backhand me, but she just laughed instead.

If I had been a minor she would have busted my mouth open.

Now I rant to my mom in the same manner as I would any of my other friends. "This fucking shit..." and so on.

Kids do curse way younger now, and like my mother I feel the urge to smack them across the mouth.

I don't even understand why there's an 'acceptable age' when to curse, it's just how I was raised and how I feel upon the matter.

I think it's bad, regardless of how many people are doing it. Swearing is and always will be bad. My neighbor's 5 yr. old kid swears more than me >.> and the kid isn't just repeating them, he's actually using them correctly. It kinda saddens me that innocent children are swearing like chain-smoking gangsters