Swearing is becoming more widely acceptable, linguistics experts claim
Swearing is becoming more widely acceptable, linguistics experts claim
Swearwords increasingly used for emphasis and to build social bonds, rather than to insult, say academics
Fuck, I sure as shit hope so.
I still fucking hate that some places require you to censor swear words in comments.
This creates a shitty situation where you have to play a fucking guessing game, where you try to guess if your comment gets removed by mods
IKR, so fucking dumb
I would have gone with "shit, I sure as fuck hope so", but you do you.
If I can’t swear and smoke I’m fucked.
I still think swearing should be used sparingly! Otherwise its effect gets diluted! It!d be like replacing every bit of punctuation with an exclamation point! Eventually it just loses its original meaning! and people stop even registering it! Treat swearing as sacred! use it to accentuate a point! and people will appreciate its importance when you do use it!
Fuck that!
It should be diluted. Language should not have that power over our emotions. Swearing becoming an extension of a purely descriptive lexicon is a good thing IMO.
Poetic language and rich prose should be the standard for emotional conveyance. That makes it special and rare. Allowing simple crass or boorish language to hold emotional power is what cheapens the concept of language having power.
You can still pack a punch with swearing, you just gotta get creative about it.
Swearing is to language what capsaicin is to food. It's not required, in some circumstances it makes things worse, but in many other it would be a real shame to deprive oneself of it, especially for a reason as stupid as "but I'm going to increase my tolerance". So fucking what? It's not heroin, shit's not going to put you into cardiac arrest if you take too much.
Uncle Ruckus: "You got to rotate your slurs."
Yes I use profanity sparingly! And when I use it, I really mean it!!!!!!
(Exclamation points added for emphasis and dilution of the entire point I'm trying to make!!!)
Eh, they're just words. I agree that using them too much "dilutes" them, but is that really anything to do with them being swearwords? Or because they're the same word I used 20 times in a two minute conversation? Literally, when I literally use the same word in literally every other sentence, you'll literally start to doubt that I even know what the word "literally" literally means.
Personally, I think that most swearwords are pretty versatile. Especially fuck. Fuck can be serious. Fuck can be fun. Fuck can be casual or intense. Fuck isn't a monolith, it's all in the context, tone, and delivery.
Absolutely, keep your powder dry until you need it. Swears are sentence enhancers, they carry weight, but if you throw them around in every sentence then they lose that weight and have no real meaning anymore. But if you hold off so people aren't expecting it and then throw in a choice word then it carries a lot more weight. That's the fucking point!
It comes up a lot more in professional settings than it used to. I would actually give this one to GenX and appreciate it when used correctly.
I'd say it's still not great to use in most professional settings, with the caveat that every environment is different. I'm not gonna be clutching pearls if I do run into someone that's more liberal with their curses, but I'm not going to be spouting off myself.
I will still continue to fight swearing if I can.
Why have you chosen this hill to die on? Swearing harms no one, and makes talking more fun. I honestly take an aversion to swearing as a sign of immaturity.
A "universal basic income" shouldn't be a thing. It encourages laziness and is more government spending which can worsen inflation.
Get fucked.
How would you do that
Very fucking cool story.
sir Nacktmull you motherfucker you can have fucking great manners and swear like a sailor. Thank you very much ya cunt
I love the image they attached to the article. Is that woman the chancellor of swearing or something?
Right, because it takes a fucking expert to figure that shit out.
Language!
A: English.
Watch your fucking language!
That's fucking right
Fuck yeah it is. Swearing is the shit.
Isn't it more that the words that are acceptable are changing?
In the ancient past, it was "taking the lord's name in vain" that was so extreme. Now, most people don't care about that. You can still see that difference in the "curse words" used in Quebec vs. France. In Quebec the naughty words are all Catholicism-related: esti, calise, tabarnak, etc. In France they're more similar to the common English ones: merde (shit), putain (whore), etc.
The religious swear words had lost their bite in most English cultures ages ago, people still say things like "christ" or "oh my god", but those mild expressions would have been jaw-droppingly awful a century earlier. For a while damn was one of the most awful words, which is why you had things like "gosh darn".
Now, it's words that were truly offensive maybe 40 years ago that are becoming common: fuck, shit, cunt, etc.
But, at the same time, words that were common in the past are becoming truly offensive now, for example "the n word", faggot, retard, tranny, etc.
The n word is much, much worse than the other truly offensive words on your list. You can tell by how it's the only one you can't actually write out, even in a discussion on swear words.
Yep, right now it has taken the #1 spot, whereas a few decades ago it was just a normal word that people used in conversation.
This is fucking great news
It was honestly a small culture shock for me when I moved from the US to Canada. Everyone I knew in the States swore rampantly amongst themselves, but in public people were often reserved and proper, and swearing in the presence of a stranger or elderly person would result in some pearl clutching - especially on a retail level.
Up here nobody gives a fuck. It's just in the vocabulary. I've gotten so used to it that I dropped a bunch of things at work recently and muttered "FFFUUCK ME!" in front of an elderly woman who I didn't realize was standing there. I apologized for my language and she was completely unfazed. Thought it was funny. Just went about helping me gather my things. Probably went up to buy her stuff afterward and said something along the lines of "Hope we get a fuckin' chinook.".
That’s one of my arguments against excessive swearing: it loses its power. What do you do when something significant happens and you need the power of words that make an impact?
Y’all are just like hyperbolic headlines from cheap media outlets trying to get attention. You tricked me into reacting, but I vow to ignore you next time.
And of course there’s the literacy argument. You’re just interjecting words that have lost their meaning, and using the same few words for everything. Do you really not have more of a vocabulary or imagination? Or why do you add necessary words to everything when fewer words have the same meaning?
I just really fucking enjoy swearing.
If you're so worried about literacy then you shouldn't need to rely on the crutch of swearing to make sure something has impact. Maybe you can tell when I'm serious because I stop swearing as I enjoy doing casually and instead rely on formal and precise language.
Why do we have thesauruses at all? Why add any unnecessary flourishes to language? Would it be the same message if someone spoke without swearing at all? Why should people censor themselves just so you can have people know you for suresies meant it when you stubbed your toe this time?
Why do individual words need power? Surely the sentiment and meaning of them is what gives them power. For instance this post of yours is more offensive to my cuss-loving ass than any amount of calling me a dumb motherfucker would be. Take your faux-erudition and carefully place it somewhere dark please.
Just means there will be new swear words
Yeah, they're shit - pissbaby, chucklefuck, all that other saccharine bullshit. Just call a cunt a cunt and be done with it. I know it's offensive to women's wonderful genitals but it's so percussive.
As if the women who complain about the word cunt have never used dick or dickhead as an insult.
Well it'll be awhile before the six letter f-word or the r word are allowed again
My youngest daughter used to never cuss. Just a total sweetheart like that. The worst thing I think I heard her say was "she act's like such a B-word!" Then she started scoring races at a local dirt track, and after putting up with all the BS from the drivers (and especially their wives) she's now out there tossing around fucks and shits and bitches and assholes and various physical threats like they're confetti...
Yes, the hard knocks of life will toughen up even the sweetest little cutie pies. And hey how did a sweetie pie get involved with dirt track racing in the first place? Surely that environment would have an influence on creating a potty mouth.
She married her HS sweetheart who's been driving since he was 14. His parents took over ownership of one of our area's tracks several years ago (there are 4 within a fifty mile radius of us) and my daughter's been scoring the races for them ever since. I did it with her for a couple of seasons back when she first started. Fun stuff...
Thank fuck
this is why I stopped swearing
Does this maybe have to do with changing moral foundations? Like society becoming less religious and moving away from religion-based aversion to mention of sex and bodily functions to the point where they basically don't count as swears anymore, while doubling down on disliking swears denigrating a protected group of people.
Fucking finally!
About fucking time!
It wasn't even that long ago when mild exclamations like d_mn and h_ll were forbidden swear words too.
yeah, I remember that it was considered extremely edgy that Bart said words like hell, damn, crap and ass on The Simpsons. lmao
why the fuck are you censoring those
You're fucking welcome! Lord knows I've been doing my part.
No it goddamn isn't, fuck you asshole!
/s obviously
No shit
You're welcome motherfuckers. Been pushing this in corporate for 20 years. Had a CEO come in and tell us we needed to tone it down bc he found himself doing it at home with his kids too much. Ivy pedigree probably never in his life before that period lol
We've finally realized that it's oppressive language that's harmful, not bodily-function language?
...why is the header photo of a lady resting her arm on a pink metal bunk bed ladder?
When overdone it tends to just make sentences longer for no fucking reason though.
‘Bout fucking time.
No shit?!
Well why the fuck not
There's just a new bunch of taboo words.
fuck yeah
You're just now fuckin' realizing this?
Yikes, this should go in /c/collapse.
wtf why
By Jove!
Even in other countries you can notice. Now in Mexico we have news commentators saying chingón (a bad word that is used for praise) and "hijo de la chingada" (son of a bitch).
30 years ago saying either would get you banned from TV for life.
I dont know anyone who doesnt swear lol
Certain breeds of Christians and coporate wankers don't. Or at the least not in public and or they feel bad when they swear.
I fucking hope it is. Cant stand people being offended.
Fuck yeahhh
No shit.
No shit
About fucking time.
I am a linguist, and I also agree with this claim. Even in my own life, especially with younger people, there's a few exemplars in most average conversations. "Fucking" in adjectival position seems especially common, but that's all just anecdotal.
What about flipping off the camera?
There was a study that showed swearing can be good for you, especially when you're feeling pain. So I'm all fucking for it
What a weird individual you are.
I'm not sure about other instances, but lemmy.zip creates an automatic report when "slur" words are used, and then instance admins and community moderators can decide how to deal with them. Context matters.
'ai să-mi bag pula!
:yawn:
I remember when I found it weird that House MD was allowed to say "crap" on TV all the time.
Crap was a swear word? I always thought it is the milder form of saying shit.
First the advertising platforms started getting called social, now swearing at each other is social. Shit is shit.
Social media reducing inhibitions
Duh, because it's just another means of control. They are just words like any other.
Where I'm from it's a marker of lower intelligence. It demonstrates that you lack the vocabulary to clarify how you feel so instead you use the same words kids use. ITS GOT WHAT PLANTS CRAVE!!!
The accusation, that my extensive use of profanity, implies a lack of mental faculties, to the point of concluding that I'm some kind of imbecile, is incomprehensibly erroneous.
But it's easier to just call you a fucking idiot.
It is easier for you isn't it cutie
I'd say its actually a marker of coming from a blue collar worker background over anything else. I get people from the dumbest labourer to ever pick up a hammer to project engineers and automation programmers and we all swear as punctuation pretty similarly. You can tell when someone's a corporate narc because they just can't swear right. Brains wired wrong for it. Now I don't swear a ton when I write because it just doesn't feel as natural compared to spoken word.
I think a lot people who swear all the time sound dumber when they're places they aren't supposed to swear because they have to constantly run over and censor everything they're trying they say on the fly and as Ricky from Trailer Park Boys would say "If I can't smoke and swear, I'm fucked"
Might as well, block me my nigga 🤷🏾♂️
Swearing is unproductive and unprofessional. It has no place in society.
OK, but why?
No. Really. Why? Why is fuck bad? What makes the word fuck a bad word? What makes it rude?
Is it the intent? Because the intent can range very broadly with a lot of sweat words. Fuck you is rude. Sure. But when someone tells me they just got in a cat accident, and I say "Fuck man," that's something said out of shock about the situation and is in more support of that person and acknowledging what just happened sucks. It's literally the opposite meaning.
Let's say I bang my knee on something at work, and say "Dang iit." Natural reaction. It happens. But what if I say "Damn it"? Some say that's pushing it. But it's the same thing. sounds slightly different. Now switch it to "Fuck" and I'm offending people? Why?
I agree people should exchange formal letters written with a large quill. Each letter should be delivered by a properly trained royal guardsman wearing a pin stripe suit and he should deliver each letter on a penny-farthing bicycle with a smile
If a large quill is not available a small quill will do but premium ink must be used. In the case of a mandingo fight please refrain from calling it as such. When the weather is inclement and no penny-farthing delivery is offered, the sender of the letter must hop on one foot saying compliments to each ugly person they pass on the street
A smile?!??! Well I never! A smile at such an occasion signals a shocking lack of gravitas and must be avoided at all cost! One wonders what second rate boarding school you attended where wanton smiling went unpunished.
Fuck outta here
Not all social interactions are of the "productive and professional" variety though. Surely you understand that, right? I bet you're a real hoot at parties.
What are your thoughts on words that are no longer considered profanity but once were?
It really varies on the nature of it. I think as a rule of thumb bad language should be avoided.
You really can't take a hint huh
Same could be said of you, but we ain't running our fucking mouths about it.
Fucking lol mate
I never understood people that freak out at swearing. I can understand it's not the most polite, but some people really freak out if you swear.
As someone who curses quite a bit, going to America was an eye opener. People who weren't even in the conversation were taking offense. I didn't realise it was so taboo there. Cunt is never said and it's like a 20 a day word for me.
Imo here in the US, cunt has something of a sexist connotation, so respectable blasphemers tend to avoid it unless it's really called for.
Cunt is always going to rile women and some men more. It's a completely different context here. Most women really really don't like it.
A fuck or shit as long as it's not in a children's park or anything in most places isn't going to be that big a deal.
I've always perceived Americans as very curse word friendly people. Not like Australians of course, but still very accepting of it.
As an American yeah that’s used to happen. But I’ve not had it happen in years. Cunt though, yeah it’s considered either an extremely misogynistic insult or an extremely graphic term for body parts we don’t talk about much.
I'm curious what state you were in. It varies quite a bit regionally. I curse frequently and have never had anyone in public get offended where I live.
I remember people from the US coming to our little office and the amount of swearing we did shocked them. It was almost funny to watch them turn around in disbelief.
Aussie?
At least the "serving cunt" meme has supercharged America's acceptance towards the word. Live in the south and have heard more people say it in public in the past year than ever before.
I'm in the US and swear quite a lot. Even at work and on slack and shit. I don't think I've ever been fussed at for it.
If I haven't called someone or something a cunt during my day, then there's something seriously wrong with me and I need to go to the hospital immediately.
As a Californian who grew up playing long nights with my Aussie friends (AUS connects to CA for their Internet so we get them a lot at night):
I'm one of the Americans fighting for the use of "cunt" more!
People are shocked at first when I use it but I'm usually onto the next thing so fast, suddenly say it in an Australian accent, and am very clearly not being negative when I say it most times (big smiles) they usually pick up that it's not mean.
They do ask where the fuck I learned to use it though and it took my wife literal years to adjust
Why on Earth would you be using such language in a public place? I can't imagine why people were freaking out.
I’ve found that many people can’t differentiate “swearing around” vs “swearing at.” If I am swearing, it is to add filler words to my sentences that serve many purposes. I am not (rather, very rarely) attempting to insult or denigrate someone else. I do not understand why someone takes offense at “I really struggled to hit my fucking steps today” or “Shit I dropped the fucking ball.” I do understand why someone takes offense at “you ignorant fucking walnut” or “fuck you you fuck trumpet.” Conflating the two situations is so fucking dumb.
Also, even when hurling invectives someone can be just as abusive without swearing.
They're letting you know they suck to be around.
I've thought about this (and taboo and norms in general) for a bit, so I'll take an unresearched guess that can be summarized as "swears are bad because people agree they are". Words have an associated context; which ones you use give some indication about the kind of person you are. In the case of swears, the context is that most people think that it is wrong to say them (though exactly how wrong varies), and (this is important) that most people think that everyone knows how wrong it is to say them. If you say a swear, you are (in others' eyes) demonstrating that you are the kind of person willing to knowingly violate these norms. The implication continues, then, that you are uncaring about what they might think or believe, what everyone in the community thinks or believes, and are willing to demonstrate that to their faces. Obviously, that may not match how you intended the word, but I think that this perceived hostility lies at the core of the reactions of those who freak out.
Either that or trauma from their parents or teachers freaking out it, or fear of divine punishment or something similar.
Interesting thought. It's kind of like the out group of, clutches pearls, atheists.
Why were you swearing? It serves no purpose really.
Profanity has existed for thousands of years in almost all languages and cultures for a reason, it absolutely serves a purpose.