three typically male traits you will never give up.

[iminadaze]

I dot see why the words are bad... i know they are... but WHY?

s'pose that the words themselves aren't that bad if you think about it,
it is just a word after all.

But the derogatory meanings when used in certain contexts, well...it just is... bad!

  Nicole

[tekla]

Never thought of the F word as idle, seems active enough to me.  And a lot of language is cultural within the situation.  I work with people, at least some of whom are extremely well educated, but it's always been a kind of four letter word world, and we stick to that most of the time.

[Sephirah]

"The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it." ~ George Washington.

Nowadays the words have grown to encompass multiple meanings and sum up longer sentences.

Once a slang word for faeces now can be applied to "possessions" "drugs" "talking nonsense" (as in 'full of'), "a bad day" and even a replacement for "etcetera".

It's just very lazy linguistics, in my opinion.

TV/Movie/Game characters who are portrayed as rebellious and "edgy", use base language and swearing to get an adverse reaction, and to establish the character to the reader/viewer/player and create believability and realism. They also serve as role models for people who want to rebel against things in their own lives. It's seen as 'cool'. So it's a vicious circle. It's life imitating art imitating life.

[Alyssa M.]

"The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests, despises, and engages in it." ~ George Washington.

Fixed it for ya', Georgie!

[tekla]

A lot of it is a vocabulary issue.  An entering college student in the early 60s had a working vocabulary of about 22K words, today, its between 12-13K, that a lot of lost ability to put shades of nuance into speech and writing.  I can tell the older posters from the younger ones based on vocabulary and grammar as the people over 50 tended to go to school back when such things were stressed.  And most of that you learn, not in college, but by 8th grade.  A high school student will have about 95% of the vocabulary they will ever have, college or not.

[iminadaze]

Nowadays the words have grown to encompass multiple meanings and sum up longer sentences.

Once a slang word for faeces now can be applied to "possessions" "drugs" "talking nonsense" (as in 'full of'), "a bad day" and even a replacement for "etcetera".

It's just very lazy linguistics, in my opinion.

TV/Movie/Game characters who are portrayed as rebellious and "edgy", use base language and swearing to get an adverse reaction, and to establish the character to the reader/viewer/player and create believability and realism. They also serve as role models for people who want to rebel against things in their own lives. It's seen as 'cool'. So it's a vicious circle. It's life imitating art imitating life.

I guess that is why swearing is more permissible. I get that, but it doesn't justify its place in todays
language and it never should, at least when in public.

A now nervous Nicole sensing that she's gonna get taught a lesson Susan's style 

Really I'm just thinking of the children, mine inparticularly
I recently saw my 15 y/o Daughter's my space page and was horrified 

  Nicole

[Ellieka]

I feel pretty much the same,Nicole. Kids these days are way to free with their language. I want to grab the nearest bucket of water and bar of soap when I hear them using a foul word after every other word .


Funny story,

When I was younger I was out in our front yard playing and the neighbor guy was out working on his van. His 6 year old son was right beside him with his bicycle turned upside down like he was working on it. All of a sudden he pinched his hand in the chain and yelled "God damn piece of s***!" To which his dad says, "RJ! watch your f****** mouth!"

[iminadaze]

LMAO 
Post Merge: February 11, 2009, 01:45:09 AM
Oh gee, I just swore 

[placeholdername]

The theory about low IQ/low vocabulary is nice and all, but it isn't actually accurate.  I've known plenty of incredibly smart people (with bigger vocabularies than mine, and mine is large already (I'm a writer, it's a necessity)) and they curse just as much as the more verbally-challenged among us.

I do agree that it can be a crutch, but sometimes it's just exactly what you mean.

[TamTam]

I curse all the time.  Probably more than I should, but still, I don't think that says anything much about my intelligence.  My vocabulary is pretty large, I just don't have a need to speak like a dictionary outside of intellectual contexts.

[iminadaze]

I do agree that it can be a crutch, but sometimes it's just exactly what you mean.

That is justifying it's place in language. A person can say something that means exactly the same
without the profanity..it only provides emphasis for an ego.

Nicole

[Rachael]

perhaps this is generational... i know there is a time and place for certain language, but im not as stuck on this being horrific!

[mina.magpie]

You know, there was a time when the words "damn" or "bugger" were considered horrible profanities - my gran still gets a bit of apoplexy whenever I say bugger in conversation. So really, I think that "profanity", if there even is such a thing, evolves just as every other aspect of language does. Tekla pointed out earlier that kids today seem to have a much smaller vocabulary than older people, and to an extend I'd agree since we grew up very much more a visual generation than a vocal generation, but also, we simply grew up using different language in the same way that that they grew up using different language from what was used in the 1890's or 1920's, for example. Language is a dynamic thing that keeps evolving, and we probably have alot of vocabulary in our brains that older people don't have or won't accept, simply because they are newly invented words that older people still see as "slang". I mean, in what dictionary today are you going to find the verb to "google", and yet it's pretty-much part of our vocabulary now.

Mina.

[tekla]

I think 'google' has been added, as a verb.

[cindybc]

Not certain if Google may have originated from the word googly, in dictionary meaning; a bowled ball that swerves in one direction and breaks in the other, or when I was a kid it also meant, in slang, looking googly eyed at a girl, I think it was depicted in Walt Disney cartoons as the eyes popping out of the characters head on springs. 

And for the girl to have a guy looking at her *googly* eyed was faltering, causing her cheeks to redden, cross one leg over the other and fold her hands on her front while fluttering her long eye lashes. Well that's what Bugs Bunny's girl friend did anyway. "hee, hee, hee."

Cindy

[Sephirah]

Google, I would guess, came from the word 'Googolplex' Which is a name for the number one followed by a hundred zeroes. (Incidentally, Google's headquarters is called Googleplex.. go figure)

[tekla]

It's the use of the word 'google' as a verb, to use an internet computer search for information. 

[Nero]

swearing or not is more about the people you grew up around and the crowd you're in than any lack of intellectual capacity...

[mina.magpie]

I think 'google' has been added, as a verb.

Yay! My "official" vocabulary is bigger by one word then! 

I wonder if google-fu is in there too.

Mina.

[cindybc]

I do so agree with you Nero, it was and is what ever crowd you hang out with. Gotta Be like the rest of the gang or they will think I'm not with it, then I'll be just an odd ball.

Cindy