I don't use the f-word out loud (except when I was attacked by a seagull while eating fish and chips and navigating through a group of children and their teacher). My swearing vocabulary is pretty much limited to "blasted", "bloody", "bleeding" and "buggering". (Why are b-words so good for swearing?) I sometimes use religious language when I'm angry but I like to think of it as praying rather than blaspheming.
My parents would not let me swear. My mother would tell me off even if I said "bugger". My father said that I must never call anyone a bugger, as his father had told him that it was the worst insult possible.
It was a revelation when I, who had never seen my parents drunk or heard them swear, became an adult myself and they let their hair down with me. They drank as much as they liked and used the foulest language imaginable.
Old habits die hard, though, so my language is relatively clean, I think.
