I got together with some friends and we were recommending shows to watch. Someone added a caution that one of the shows that was recommended (The Night Agent on Netflix) had a character who used frequent bad language. Someone else immediately replied, “I don’t have to worry about that! I’ve got VidAngel!”
VidAngel is a Provo-based business that uses software to blur, delete, or skip content like swearing, profanity, sex, or nudity on streaming services. The customer can choose what to filter out. Honestly, I didn’t know VidAngel was still around. They filed bankruptcy in 2017 due to a $60+ million judgment that Disney won against them for copyright issues. The judgment was reduced to less than $10 million and that allowed VidAngel to stay in business.
Anyway, I watched Night Agent and only remembered the character in question swearing a couple times. My opinions and reaction to swearing has changed since I quit attending Church. I no longer believe that hearing the f-bomb can make me impure. Everyone in my household swears. A few words are off limits, but not many. The really bad words in this day and age are racial and ethnic slurs. The f-bomb is no big deal, but no one EVER uses the n-word. I’m not typically bothered by swearing in shows or books, though it depends on the frequency. People who use the f-bomb as a noun, adjective, adverb, and preposition are a turn-off. I’m not bothered by my kids swearing, or friends who swear.
(I think this anecdote is funny. My son was griping about having to do something that I wanted him to do. “Why do I have to?” he whined at me. Straight-faced, I replied, “because you’re a son of a b–.” Then I laughed my head off. He did what I told him to do. I thought it was a very efficient way to let him know that he wasn’t going to win the argument with me.)
What does still bother me is overhearing swearing when I’m out in public. I ride public transit daily. If someone breaks out swearing loudly, I do my best to become invisible — don’t make eye contact, get off at the next stop, don’t say anything. If someone is swearing, that means they’re having an outburst and I don’t want it aimed at me. If there is the least bit of anger behind a swear word, I cower and hope it goes away soon. My dad would swear when he got angry, and I’m probably never going to get over that instinctual fear of a swearing, angry man. I feel uncomfortable when listening to a woman swear loudly and publicly (I’m thinking of a woman experiencing homelessness who verbally attacked someone on public transit), but not afraid.
And then there was the time that a group of us were huddled under the shelter on the train platform because of the rain, and a group of teenagers were discussing sex very crudely and explicitly. I finally snapped at them, “watch your language!” They said sorry and stopped talking about sex. A couple adults thanked me for speaking up.
What are your opinions and thoughts on cussing, swearing, profanity, bad language, and verbal badness?
Has it changed based on your Church activity level?
Does it bother you when people swear?
Is there a difference to you in bad language used in shows/books as compared to bad language in conversation?
Have you ever asked anyone to not use certain words around you? Has anyone asked you to not use certain words around them?
Wheat & Tares 
My family has decided that the world we live in is just too hard for paltry “sh*t” and a**hole”. We live in an F-bomb world.
It has always seemed odd that LDS leaders teach both that being offended is a choice, but also that profanity is so offensive that you should avoid even hearing it as if it is some kind of spiritual contaminant
This is a wonderful post that raises an issue that is ignored by far too many.
There is a reason that the average teenager uses language that would send a passing Nun into cardiac arrest. They have been raised by television and TikTok while their parents looked the other way.
Modern Hollywood goes out of its way to insert needles profanity and gratuitous sexuality into every so-called show. Night Agent in particular seems like a deliberate effort to set a record for F-bombs.
In addition, the laziness of culture itself leads to laziness in speech. Teens who are allowed to leave the house in unwashed sweatpants and crocs feel like they need not adhere to any rules of decorum whatsoever.
I join Janey in calling for more propriety and civility in speech. But we won’t get civility in speech if we let our youth dress and behave like lonely Russian princesses in every other aspect of their lives.
Since I stopped attending church, “Damn” and “Hell” are on my conversational table:) Also a literal “God-Damn It” is pretty fun coming from an atheist/agnostic as part “angry prayer”.
Sexual and Racial slurs are still bothersome to me. “F*ck” is a weird one to me because technically it’s not about sex or control anymore and is more about “magnitude” more then anything.
I rarely swear because it’s a strong “loss-of-control” indicator, and I was “raised in control of myself” – so I had no need to swear at all. I still really don’t swear because it makes the times that I do swear more impressive to others. I just don’t want to see to myself as person who swears, so I don’t swear – problem solved. I can string together other terms in a beautiful tirade as needed:)
My husband used to swear a lot and I was never sure what to make of it. Trying to step in and help him control himself in the situation (like one is taught in RS as “being the moral example” and put on that pedestal) never worked for me. Heading the situation where he would want to swear off at the pass and preventing it from developing into that type of situation worked better sometimes – but it made the times where I couldn’t worse and set an example for my girls that I don’t like. I no longer fear “swearing” per se – and I have learned that I owe it to myself to ignore swearing outbursts if they don’t involve me. I literally “have better things to do” then sit around in a room where angry swearing is going on.
Usually when I use cuss words they are self-directly and for good reason or aimed at my computer, so I am not perfect in that score. I agree with John Charity Spring in that the language we tend to use is a result of laziness liguistically as well as culturaly. I have known people who could reprimand people severly and not resort to foul language and make themselves crystal clear. Sometimes I wonder, if in our educational processes, we never really come to master the command of the English language.
I recently heard a story, which seems credible, about Elder and sister Bednar getting up and walking out of a Broadway style production about 30 minutes into the first act. The reason being some foul language at play. I see the disrespect of standing and leaving during the middle of the scene more offensive than the swearing. I personally don’t actively pursue profanity in my regular everyday conversation, but that being said, I have just about had it with equating “purity” before God with abstaining from saying an occasional F$ck, or S&*t, or any others that may be perfectly called for in any given situation. For example, my wife, who is quite a straight arrow, had quite a knot in her back. She grabbed a lacrosse ball we use for a little trigger point therapy, placed it between her back and the wall, and proceeded with this very sophisticated home remedy. When she hit the “knot”, the pain was great enough that, the only thing that made sense was, “Holy Mother F&$@er”. Sometimes it just feels better to say it out loud.
The broader question for me, within our LDS context, is, does God care that much? And if so, how much? I don’t understand thinking oneself righteous by leaving a show with a little profanity, that you likely knew did, while being complicit in sexism, racism, homophobia, abuse of power, lying to the SEC and the membership, etc. But, at least, I never say the “F” word. Righteousness by personal observance of “purity codes” repeatedly misses the entire Biblical narrative.
“I love that man better who swears a stream as long as my arm yet deals justice to his neighbors and mercifully deals his substance to the poor than the long, smooth-faced hypocrite.” –Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (compiled by Joseph Fielding Smith, 1976, pg. 303).
My attitude towards cussing is that the main thing that determines the meaning of language is its usage. Most four-letter cuss words are mainly used to express frustration, anger, impatience, etc. I don’t swear when I’m in the presence of another person, and I rarely swear when I’m commenting online. But when I’m by myself, I think it’s a perfectly reasonable use of language to vent my frustration by swearing a blue streak at my computer when the code doesn’t run or other things are stressing me out.
TLDR: I cuss when I’m frustrated and angry, but not when anybody else is around.
If Video Angel did The Wolf of Wall Street, it would be a silent disjointed movie.
Swearing in the past seemed to be about religious taboo words. Then it came to be more about sexual and bodily taboo words. Now the utmost profanity is racial and LGBTQ slurs.
I find people who say the f-word a lot to be uncouth and low class. But it doesn’t bother me that much. I’ve had lots of good friends who just talk that way. I’ve never told them to not use a word. I hardly ever swear around other people. My upbringing prevents me from so doing.
However, I will stop telling people to use ethnic, racial, and LGBTQ slurs. Someone who even just casually uses these is not or no longer my friend. I once privately told my dad to stop telling a particular Jewish joke that I had heard him tell several times at family gatherings. I told him by email and that the norms throughout the US had simply changed and that people tend to find that joke offensive, myself included, even if he meant it as a good gest and personally held nothing against Jews.
I am dismayed that much of the right-wing in their pretentious anti-cancel culture and fake pro-free speech crusades have embraced telling ethnic, racial, and LGBTQ jokes and casually using slurs. They chalk it up to the “left” not having a sense of humor. Sorry alt-right folks, that’s why we call you guys racists and homophobes. You rejected that label for so long. But now you’ve revealed your true colors.
I love this topic; I find cussing to be a fascinating linguistic concept. It is often broken into two categories: obscenity (the vulgar, bodily function words) and profanity (the religious words). I like the addition above of epithets, the slurs regarding groups of people. Epithets are unacceptable. Profanity is pretty elastic and, in English, is losing some power. My kid has attended the singles ward in London for the last 3 years; she tells me that “damn” and “hell” are so innocuous that people use them in the chapel. On the other hand, when she was giving tours of Temple Square in French, she had to do some careful explaining to Canadian French speakers. To them, the word “tabernacle” (just say the same word with a French accent) is the worst swear word in their lexicon; religious words are (or were, this is 7 years ago) very taboo.
Let’s add to the mix that the obscenities in English are often from Old English, and their polite counterparts (like “fornication”) are from Latin.
I do not care for R rated vulgarity, violence or sex. Violence & gore especially turn me off and for this reason I’ve never cared for horror flicks. At one point I had a computer and integrated channel tuner that allowed me to record movies broadcast on American cable channels (TBS, TNT, but not HBO). This meant the films were usually edited down to a PG level and I and my family enjoyed that.
There are R rated films I find worthy to watch – The Shawshank Redemption being top on my list. But my wife will not watch any film that drops the F word or shows harsh violence, sex or gratuitous nudity so we have agreed to filter movies we watch according to her preference.
The American history of film ratings is informative. I recently purchased the DVD trilogy of the Back to the Future films – each of which is rated PG. What is noticeable is the first film (made in 1985) had a lot more swearing then the subsequent films made in 1989/1990). American culture became quite puritan in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A key mover of this censorship was Tipper Gore, wife of Democratic Senator Al Gore, who launched a movement in the 1980s to censor explicit music lyrics.
Us old timers will observe that a PG movie today is tamer than a PG movie of the early 1980s. It is not necessarily an apples to apples comparison but old-time PG movies were especially more tolerant of nudity. Today, we have Disney movies rated PG simply because they portray a certain level of tension and conflict.
John Charity Spring – part of your comment picked up some ideas that I didn’t intend to convey. You said: “I join Janey in calling for more propriety and civility in speech. But we won’t get civility in speech if we let our youth dress and behave like lonely Russian princesses in every other aspect of their lives.”
The post wasn’t about what people should and shouldn’t do. I told a story about sexual crudity going far enough that I asked the teens to knock it off. But I also said that there are a lot of f-bombs in my house. And, despite the hopes and dreams I had in my early years as a mother, my kids will only wear track pants and t-shirts. They don’t wear crocs all day because they don’t wear shoes at all in the house. And they do spend most of their day playing video games in the basement. Like, yeah, definitely need to make it clear that I’m not holding myself and my family up as an example of cultured speech and Russian princesses (wtf does that mean anyway?). I did try to get my kids to wear more formal clothes to school (jeans, and occasionally a shirt with buttons), but once you’ve got two kids with texture issues, you can’t make the third one wear nice clothes while the other two get to wear track pants. We are slobs. But comfortable slobs! And we have talked about not swearing at school, or around friends who are still active LDS, and so forth. Read the room; use appropriate language depending on where you are.
I aspire to Brad D in telling people not to use racial epithets, or any other type of slur, particularly LGBTQ slurs, given the political climate that is re-embracing racism, sexism, and homophobia. Drop all the f-bombs you want, but don’t treat someone’s personhood with disrespect. I’m getting better at speaking up about this.
I hear the n-word all the time on the streets and on the bus and train. Never from a white person – most frequently from hispanics, and almost always from people under 30. Not really used as a profanity, but more as part of a vernacular. It’s still always a little jarring to someone with any historical awareness.
I was never in the habit of using any profanity until about 10 years ago when a particularly malevolent character began to dominate political discourse and I was surprised to find my interior monologue and the mutterings under my breath began to regularly feature the phrase “PoS” although usually minimally softened to “piece of trash” in actual conversation. Sadly, this phrase and others have expanded in my mental usage to encompass a vast group of enablers, mediocrities, toadies, and sycophants, especially the ones who know better.
People who act offended upon hearing swearing are usually just virtue signaling. Like it is somehow noble to be offended by bad words. Let these words roll off your back and they become no big deal. You can always choose not to be offended after all.
As George Carlin said, the “F” word is a marvelous word. It is a noun, a verb, an adjective, and adverb, an adjective modifying an adverb. It can be a preposition or the object of a preposition. It’s a very versatile word.
I’ve read a few books on the “F” word (One called “The F Word”). They were interesting because it’s a word that is not centered in the linguistic part of the brain but in the reptilian part. I found this out one day when I was at my daughter’s house and had taken her engagement pictures for about 5 hours all over the city in about six settings and I was exhausted when we got back to her house. It happened to be when General Conference was letting out and she lives in a neighborhood where everyone parks to walk to the Conference Center. Well when I opened the back of our SUV, my brand new $3000 DSLR Camera which I had just bought, fell out on to the street and I let loose with a string of explicatives that was meant to peel paint off of houses. People changed sides of the street to walk “around” me, and my daughter was pleading with me saying it was alright but I wasn’t done yet for a few minutes. I then picked it up and left. My daughter called and apologized, I apologized to her and when I got home, I looked at the camera and it had a scratch but not much more, so I guess it was alright. Still, as I thought about it for the next couple of days, I wondered where that came from because I’m not like that. That’s when I got the “F Word” book and learned how it was centered in the Reptilian Brain and not in the linguistic part of the brain. There was research to back that up with people who lost their speech because of a stroke or something but still retained their ability to cuss when hurt or frustrated. I thought it was interesting and figured that was what happened with me because I was so tired and not really in control during this stressor. I then read another book about the “F” word and it traced the origin of the word, how it evolved, other words that used to be worse, etc. I came to the conclusion it was a word that had context, meaning, and a way to use it but it was just a word. People take offense to the word but then they take offense to a lot of things. Take the word “Woke” for instance. Some people claim it others reject it and neither really understand how it’s meaning has changed or how it represents Blacks overcoming repression but has been taken to mean liberal, which BTW, also used to be a good word.
So do I use the F word or any other “cuss” words. Now it depends on a lot of things. I don’t want to offend people but then sometimes I do and want to add shock value to emphasize a point. A lot of extra energy has to be expended to make a point that might go over someones head because it’s to polite. I don’t worry about it in movies unless it’s just gratuitous overuse for the sake of a rating but I also don’t worry about a rating because of the F word if its used in an authentic way.
Finally I’m going to say that after 60 years of holding things in, not wanting to offend, and being polite, that outburst I had with dropping the camera felt good as a release. I’ve found since then that sometimes saying the word just feels good. It’s something I do more in private than public but practice does make perfect.
I think it is a fascinating question of what makes something vulgar and profane and obscene. Certainly there is a cultural as well as individual interpretation. I worry that we as a culture fail to separate the discernment of a thing as profane from the taking of offense at it. For I do think it is possible to not take offense but still recognize a thing as obscene, vulgar and profane.
For if we are unable to recognize a thing as obscene, vulgar and profane, how are we able to recognize those things that are glorious, beautiful and divine? A part of the genius of the story and movie “The Shawshank Redemption” is how it illustrates the contrast between the vulgar and the beautiful. The violence inflicted on Andy being vulgar, his playing of The Marriage of Figaro being divine – this leading to Andy’s prison friend Red to observe:
“I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I’d like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can’t be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.”
It is for this reason I think we need to be cautious about allowing the profane to become normal. For when we can no longer recognize the coarseness of life for what it is, will we be able to appreciate beauty for what it represents? And to me this discernment is what matters.
Yeah, as a person with a degree in English, swearing is not something that bothers me, now or ever really. What can be scary / bad / anti-social is when vitriol is targeted at another person or when someone has lost control, but that can involve swearing or not. The swearing isn’t the problem, but the way it’s being used can be.
I’m with George Carlin. Swearing doesn’t necessarily denote a lack of education. Swear words are remarkably versatile. As noted above, the words we consider “acceptable” mean the same things as those we consider “profane,” mostly because of the Norman conquest in 1066 (in English specifically). But why? What’s wrong with a straight-forward sounding Anglo-Saxon term instead of a flowery-sounding genteel one? It was a political / cultural argument that’s now a thousand years old that we take for granted.
Also, profanity has a psychological benefit, particularly when used privately to express frustration. Which is better? Saying the F word or throwing a plate at the wall?
I was talking to a 5 year old recently about how we shouldn’t tattle on others. He replied, “Well, you know what? My dad says the F word in the shower. A lot.”
When used from the reptilian part of the brain, I think bad word are much better than bad behavior. When used constantly, I begin to think the person only has a reptilian level brain. When a person constantly uses bad language, they lose the ability to express outrage beyond the normal with bad words and often start expressing rage with bad behavior because there is nothing to escalate from normal to rage with in language left.
of course back in the 50s the n word was in children’s rhymes and there were lynchings so, I am not saying things have gotten worse, just that it is no longer taboo to swear or commit violence in front of women and children.
I prefer for “cussing” (to use the word from the title) to be absent, or at least minimized, in polite circumstances and among polite people. I like to think of myself as a polite person, so my cussing is very rare (and even then, is carefully controlled).
However, when I go out among others, or when I watch a movie that I have chosen to watch, I am generally undisturbed by cussing by others.
I see the policing of cussing as a matter of personal and societal restraint rather than a matter of religious dogma — for example, I think one refrains from cussing in a church and among older parishioners because of personal and societal restraint rather than religious dogma.
I like JB’s quote from the Prophet Joseph Smith.
I truly believe there is a time and place for swear words. Stubbing a toe for instance. Words have meaning and to me most swear words convey an intense frustration or derision for something. Frustration and derision exist so these words exist.
I know some folks who seem to use these words so frequently that they have really lost all meaning. I don’t care, but it’s an odd way to speak.
I agree with everyone else that slurs are not acceptable and deserve to be called out.
Hawkgrrrl:
You brought up a very interesting thought for me when you talked about Angle-Saxon words vs. more gentile words that mean the same thing. We can really say anything we really want using “good” or “bad” words. There are a few hundred, maybe thousand, words that mean the same things as the F word, or any other cuss word for that matter. How we get the meaning across is part of communication but it’s also an indication of our own biases, judgements, prejudices, and outright discriminations. For instance the N word used yesterday as a put down but today as both a put down and social bonder depending on who’s using it. As a white man, I wouldn’t use it because I wouldn’t want to put someone down but also don’t want to culturally appropriate something I’m not a part of. It’s the same with the word Mormon. It used to be a put down. Then it became a social joiner, what we called ourselves. Now, it’s viewed by the very people who used to be called Mormons as something to judge those that say it. In other words the put down is on our own who don’t give up saying a word that holds very little of the old derision. Before the “commandment” it was a social force that brought us together. Now it’s a stick to seperate and judge us.
I don’t curse, although I have occasionally and only in very limited company referred to some people as aholes. It doesn’t bother me to hear cursing in a movie, but I think most of it is gratuitous and it reflects on the education of the writers. It pains me to hear an elected official use foul language. I don’t see it as a matter for religious enforcement or condemnation, but I do think that decorum and politesse are important in a civil society. I put cursing in general speech in the same category of other boorish behaviors like a man wearing a baseball cap at a table in a restaurant, or a man going out in polite society in a t-shirt when a polo or buttoned shirt would be more appropriate. These behaviors do not affect my behavior: I can be friendly with and associate with these people and they never know that I’m thinking that they didn’t benefit from having parents who understood that social norms are a great grease that helps society function with less friction. I don’t see myself judging others, as it does not affect my behavior to them. I do not get indigestion sitting at a meal table with a man hearing a hat, but I won’t do it. I do not flinch when a person in my company drops an unnecessary f-bomb, but I won’t drop one, and I will laugh if he drops an f-bomb in telling a joke, if the joke is otherwise funny. I also will not talk badly about him to my wife or children later.
A few years ago, a study found that people who were allowed to swear tolerated discomfort better than those who weren’t allowed to swear. And awhile back (a long while back), a South Park episode used the word sh*t 200 times, the message being that it lost its effect with overuse. I’ve come to the conclusion that swearing is not a moral issue at all, and that using swear words judiciously can be extremely effective.
In Australia we have American and British TV. We particularly like comedy and detective shows. We much prefer the British because comedy because they are more inclusive, and talk about the whole range of subjects. Americans are restricted by what might be acceptable to wide variety of people. Poms don’t worry about being woke or maga. We particularly like QI.
We stopped watching American detective because they are continuously waving guns and yelling. We watched a Vera last night where she ended up with her arm round the murderer, saying sorry love but I’m going to have to arrest you.
I do not swear and do not see the necessity for it. I am hearing it much less in society too. On my mission many companions said flip which I pointed out to them was not a term in use where we were so a local hearing them say it would think they were either saying sh#t or f bomb. Some accepted that others thought that was their problem.
Richard Cheese bowdlerizes the n-word, even though I know he’d get a pass:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx14V2hz_Jw
(David Allen Coe, anybody?)
I used to read Marvel comics featuring Thor, who spoke in a quasi-Shakespearean style, and would say things like “Fie on’t!” or “Zounds!” But actually “Zounds!” is quite a serious oath–it means “God’s wounds!”
https://objectiveministries.org/zounds/
Also, a villain might call someone a “cretinous buffoon.” I feel this disrespects people with cretinism, and wrote in to demand proper swearing.
There is a terrific scene in an underrated film, From the Hip, where Judd Nelson’s character argues in court about the admissability of the word “a-hole.” At one point, he challenges the judge and opposing attorney to provide another word that means the same thing/has the same connotation…and Nelson wins the appeal because they could not do so.
Sometimes, nothing else is appropriate for a situation. There have been studies that demonstrate that swearing actually boosts pain tolerance by upward of 32%. Swearing has been shown to improve memory and strengthen social bonds. And when driving in Utah (or dealing with BYU administrators), swearing is an excellent intermediate step that prevents potential violence.
Oooh! Ooooo! This is an area of scholarly interest, or was once upon a time. The worst thing you can call somebody in any language/culture can tell you a lot about the values of that group of people. I did a comparative study at BYU that was so much fun. The Lee Library has an impressive number of books on the subject. But I continued to be interested as a grad student.
Swearing, done right, can build relationships, especially among colleagues. Overdo it and it’s a problem, but used sparingly swearing can signal that you’re not an uptight prude, and that you’ve admitted the people you’re swearing around into a more trusted class of associate.
Curse words live in different parts of our brains than other speech; that’s why sometimes people with dementia can still swear a blue streak but can’t ask you how your day was.
To Chadwick’s point, there is evidence that swearing can relieve pain. (Can confirm.) Studies I’ve looked at say it reduces perception of pain by a third. Quite an analgesic!
Not only does the f word do all the things that others (and George Carlin) have noted above, it’s one of English’s only midfixes, and by far our most versatile. It is among the oldest words in our language and has—as far as I have read—always been a curse word.
I don’t swear for the same reason I don’t rap. It’s not because I think it’s immoral, it’s because I sound like a goofball. I think there is skill involved, and it’s a skill I don’t have. I could practice and get better at it (swearing and rapping), but I don’t see the need. Respect to those who have the skill though.
I went to BYU in the late 90s and early aughts. I remember back then that all many people seemed to care about was if you watched rated-R movies, used swear words, drank caffeine, and did homework on Sundays. Those were the ultimate tests of righteousness, the ultimate tests of worthiness. I remember in an anthropology class once a student proudly stood up in front of a class of 100+ students and proclaimed that he “belonged to a religious group that believed in not taking the Lord’s name of vain” (yeah, dude we all know what religious group that is) and thereby denounced the assigned book that we were reading that used the f-word a couple of times (ok, the f-word technically isn’t talking the Lord’s name in vain). Granted, most students rolled their eyes at this kid. Another incident at BYU was a girl wishing she lived in Canada because their rating system for movies was more lax and she could watch movies there that she couldn’t here because they were rated R here. Another story is of a girl whose mission in life was to shame people who said damn or hell. People ask why I’ve stopped believing, a part of the reason is this sort of culture that fixates on trivialities as a test of worth. This culture is not separate from what the leaders say. The leaders have created this culture. Think of Gordon Hinckley’s injunction for women not to wear more than one set of earrings and David Bednar’s talk shaming young men who date girls who wear more than one set of earrings. Think of Spencer Kimball’s story chastising a nurse for saying, “oh my God” or something to that effect. All the stories about the brave and courageous heroes who walked to church instead of driving because they were low on gas and didn’t want to buy it on Sunday or who stood up in their sports teams and rejected the playing of games on Sundays. Sorry folks, this is not heroism. This is not a display of righteous. This is a display of Phariseeism that Jesus went out of his way to condemn as part of the lower law on several occasions in the Gospels. How can you read Jesus’ message and then turn around and obsess about someone else watching R-rated movies or wearing more than one pair of earrings?
Interesting discussion here. In the home I grew up in, my adult-convert father swore during moments of anger or frustration (and he was frustrated very often), and only at home, not among polite company or at church. My mom might let out a profane word in extreme anger, but those moments were rare. Only the F-bomb was totally off limits to them, and all profanity use was off limits to us kids. Meanwhile, I was aware of other strict LDS families who had prohibitions on common rejoinders like “shut up” and “that sucks”. The bishop of my teenage years had such house rules, which he enforced on all YM/YW activities in which he was in attendance. Most of us thought it was weird and excessive.
As a young adult trying to be devoutly LDS while attending a west coast public university, I tried to be disciplined enough not to use foul language myself, but I learned to not get bothered by others using it, nor was I averse to hearing it used in movies or TV. Then I spent 20 years in the military, where cursing is elevated to an art form and new innovations of profanity usage are pioneered every day. Even so, I tried not to use it too much, though sometimes it was just a necessary element of communication in that sphere. But I remember attending sacrament meeting in Afghanistan, where it was normal to hear someone occasionally let an F-bomb slip during a talk, or make a reference to a well-known R-rated movie to illustrate their point. We all got a chuckle out of it, since in that environment we mutually understood that profanity was the water we swam in and the air we breathed.
Now in my mid-40s, with my resistance worn down after 3 kids, I find myself using foul language almost daily. Racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic slurs are definitely off limits, and other vulgar words must be used with some degree of control (such as when directed at a specific person, one must be sure to support the assertation with evidence, or at least be sure the potential retaliation is worth the insult). Even in my workplace of educated professionals, casual profanity usage is frequent.
Interestingly, my wife grew up in rural southern Utah, where she was surrounded by old-time LDS farmers and ranchers who regularly cursed, drank coffee and though nothing of going shopping on Sundays after church. She is known to let out strings of profanities when provoked, but they have a very folksy 1880s-style phrasing to them that makes me laugh, which in turn defuses her anger slightly. And while both of us know better than to use the n-word for any reason, she remembers hearing it used by her grandparents and other older relatives in that rural LDS community, as recently as 2008 (after Obama was first elected, of course).
Majored in Linguistics, damn and hell are hardly regarded as offensive swearing at all in the UK. I have used them myself.
My family will confirm however that when I am especially stressed or frustrated my go to phrase is “For goodness sake, this is ridiculous”. Hmmm…
Having said all that, when I was a teenager in school my peers would accuse me of swearing when I would exclaim “rats!” or “piglets!”. There was a view that it wasn’t the word I was using per se, but the way in which I was using it, that made it swearing.
My parents did not curse so it is that I can remember 4+ decades later the specific situations where I heard them each use profanity (the Bible type, not the “big one”).
My Dad was when he got frustrated installing a home appliance and he called the manufacturer a naughty word. My Mom’s case was funny. She was helping drive us Blazer scouts into the city and she was following a car driven by another church member. She knew the area very well and apparently the other driver did not. In frustration my Mom said out load “Darn it” But she didn’t say darn.
Makes me laugh to this day. I wonder if any kids in my car went home and tattled.
I think I’ve used some of the lesser swears a grand total of about a half dozen times in my life. I don’t believe I’ve ever said any of the stronger ones. I simply don’t find it necessary. I’m allowed to swear, I choose not to. It doesn’t particularly bother me in books, movies or my every day life. I’ve worked in places where I’d hear them literally dozens of times per day. I probably judged those people a bit, not so much for being uncouth, but for having poor vocabularies. I find it interesting that while my wife doesn’t swear much, she definitely swears more than I do, but at the same time, has an intense dislike for the F-word and is sometimes bothered by movies or people that swear profusely.
Swearing, like all language, is about expressing ideas, particularly the strength of those ideas. If they day ever comes that I let loose a huge stream of foul language, I hope everyone will appreciate that coming from me it means that much more.
Since I grew up with every possible profanity around me I’m very tolerant and often swear myself, but think I might stop as I recognise it does have a coarsening and inflammatory effect in the home if overused, and when listening to my adult son find it alarming as it can feel like a precursor to violence. So whilst it can be tolerated and may even be useful, not sure it’s to be embraced. Important to be reasonable and reflective in these things I think. Taking constant offence however is just silly in a grown up world. Too many big things to be alarmed about.
I do wonder about the level of adrenalisation it might reflect in a family though and so I think it might be worth me not contributing to that…swearing on the street however is probably to increase the sum total of alarm in society.
Oh, that “it isn’t the word. It is how you use it,” really ticks me off. I have known people like that, and what they really wish to forbid is not swearing, but any expression of anger at all. Anger makes some people uncomfortable and some people even think that anger itself is a sin. Anger or its expression is not a sin. It is a necessary part of good mental health.
it like that study that says people who are allowed to swear when in pain cope with the pain better. Well, that is only going to hold true to the majority of us who use swear works when expressing strong emotions. The minority of people….oh like Bednar, who NEVER swear are not going to feel better if allowed to swear because they don’t swear. Let me rephrase the study some. People who are forbidden normal outlets to express emotion, such as normal people feel when in pain are going to feel *worse* when forbidden their normal way of expressing themselves. Bednar would not feel better if allowed to swear. He is much too self righteous for that. You might force him to swear, but that would just make him feel guilty and worse.
Profanity is like spice in food. Used appropriately, it’s super effective. But you can’t make a dish of just spice.
For perhaps the best example of bang for your single f-bomb profanity buck, watch the movie Antitrust (2001) with Ryan Phillipe and Tim Robbins.
Nothing in my life did more to turn me from being a non swearer to an occasional swearer than being the parent of a difficult toddler. That kid got me to say things I’d never imagined myself saying before. Thankfully we’re past that now and he’s mostly grown up. Pretty much all of us in my family swear on occasion. We’ve periodically had conversations with my son about swearing while playing video games with friends. Our primary concern is that we don’t like him insulting or belittling people, and when he protests that it’s mostly with close friends that he has a rapport with, we have acknowledged that context matters, but caution is still warranted about how we talk to others. In this new world of greater tolerance of swearing, I find that I’ll watch an R rated movie if the rating is primarily language based, but I’m still squeamish about intense violence and sex.
It’s interesting you bring up societal shifts in swearing. I recently read an article by a linguist who says we’re entering what he describes as a third era. In the first era, the worst curses were religion-based condemnations, where damn and hell were the worst words. Sometime in the last few hundred years, there was a cultural shift toward greater preference for bodily privacy that apparently didn’t previously exist, and words related to bodily functions became more severe curses. And he proposes that we’re entering a new era where slurs based on race, ethnicity, or other identity markers such as sexuality are becoming the new “worst words”. I for one welcome such a development as a sign of social progress.
One more thought: during my young adult years as both a student and missionary, I had a few opportunities to mix with non-American Anglophones. That was when I learned that basically none of them, whether from UK, Australia, or South Africa, considered damn and hell swear words in the way that I as an American did at the time. (I would argue that American usage has moved that direction in the last few decades as well). It was helpful for me to understand the fairly arbitrary nature of which words are “bad”. It is entirely socially constructed, and a slightly different social environment leads to a different outcome.
There are a few swear words that convey a meaning that no other words can quite cover. Personally, I try to avoid swearing in most circumstances. I have found swearing, especially the F-bomb, gets to be super grating. It’s as if we’ve stopped putting any thought in how we communicate with one another. It’s tiresome. I’ve seen a few movies where there is tons of swearing and it just drops the IQ of the whole room. It’s as if the screenwriters put no thought into the dialogue. Swearing appropriately applied can give rhetorical punch, but more often it’s just lazy, vulgar, degrading communication–and that part I don’t like.
I keep this quote laminated and taped to my fridge “Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.” Mark Twain
Question for all the swear-word linguists here: I had a youth Sunday School teacher (Mormon) tell us that in an earlier era in England, the f-word was painted on walls/doors of businesses in the sex-work industry, an acronym for, “fornication under consent of the king”.
Can anyone verify if this is true?
My wife and I have always had a “no swearing” rule in the house, which included movies. With streaming services, it is a lot harder to guarge the swearing level until it is being viewed, so we have allowed for more swearing in what we view. For me, it was, and still is, important for our kids to understand that their language has an impact on others. To have a space where they have to watch their language (at home) has helped them have better filters at work and school. I don’t think God really cares about occasional swearing, but I do think there is a time and a place.