Is using profanity really that necessary?

                                                 

Profanity is a socially offensive language which may also be referred to as  bad language, strong language,  offensive language, coarse language,  foul language, vulgar  language’ lewd  language, dirty words and swear words  but whatever it is referred to, it is a bad choice of words or expletives. The use of such language is referred to as swearing, cursing or cussing. Used in this sense, profanity is a subset  of a language's lexicon that is generally considered to be strongly impolite, rude or offensive. It can show a debasement of someone or something, or show intense emotion about someone or something. In its more literal sense, "profanity" refers to a lack of respect for things and persons that or who may in fact be deserving of respect as well as causing religious offense.

Strong language is by no means a recent phenomenon. Those who use profanity will say, “So what if anything said is morally wrong when using some occasional use of colorful language in a conversation.”

Although the Bible doesn’t explicitly ban the use of profanity, there are scriptures that seem to discourage it. Here is a quote from the scriptures in which the Bible records instances, such as the mention of men who "eat their own dung, (feces) and drink their own piss" in the Authorized King James Version of the 1611 translation of Hebrew text of 2 Kings 18:27.

In the United States and in other countries, the citizens are no strangers to profanity. They do it in the home, in the television shows and even in the workplace, schools and playgrounds etc. Foul language has become quite commonplace. But that does not mean that all Americans and others actually like using or hearing it.

How many people use profanity? A recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that 74 percent of women, and 60 percent of men in the United States are upset by listening to profanity even some of the time. Everybody swears—0.3 per cent to 0.7 per cent of the time on average, according to research even if moderately and euphemistically, replacing fucking with, say, fudge or like in movies, effing. But the meaning remains clear. It’s a little lexicon game the prudish and pedantic play in their conversations with one another.  And yet, face to face swearing is still considered taboo in many places and in many circumstances, where words meet our ears as language evolves culturally.

Many people also consider the rules about profanity to be a cultural issue. Some countries are more relaxed about using cuss words in everyday conversations. Even many Christians don’t adhere to a complete ban on profanity.

I am sure that some of my prudish readers will still take me to task for my views in this article complaining that they have to keep my views away from their young children to shield their eyes from objectionable words and phrases that is in this article and others in my blog. Am I expected to write to the level of an impressionable six year-old prude? Have their parents listened to the filthy words expressed in movies while their children are watching the same program on TV and not sent their children out of the room? 

In these modern times, the swearing jargon is more commonly devolved from the scatological–a hierarchy of waste from a human or animal’s posterior as one linguist put it: from the words “crap, shit and fart” that are now ho-hum. Is there really anything wrong saying, “I have to take a shit.” or. “I have to take a pee? When I was a kid on a farm, the expression given when one had to pee was, “I am going to see a horse about some water.” That was only said to protect our ears from hearing profanity. Notwithstanding that, those first words still don’t pass the sniff-test of editors of newspapers, with respect to the bodily functions in their vocabulary. I on the other hand, don’t pull any punches in my articles. I tell it like it really is. If any of my readers don’t like my choice of words, their relief is always within inches of the mouse in order to shut down their computer so that their lives can continue to be sanitized.   

In my opinion, I believe that when someone swears, it is for the most part because they are expressing their anger about something or someone they disapprove of.

                                               

Of course when it's not necessary to use swear words, these people who use them are often considered less intelligent and less credible than those who do not use swear words. There may be a valid point there. I will give you an example.

Someone is looking at a beautiful sunset. He turns to someone standing next to him and exclaims. “That is a fucking beautiful sunset.” An intelligent person would say, “That is an exceptionally beautiful sunset.”  

You really don't win an argument by swearing. You don't prove that you are tough, smart or articulate. You don't earn respect or admiration. You don't motivate, you intimidate. Swearing doesn't get you hired, promoted, or romantically connected unless you are talking to similar a foul-mouth person.   

As conventional thinking would have it, profanity is indeed something that should be limited in your life, or at the very least, to preserve your reputation and set a good example for your children.

I remember visiting an acquaintance in his home and while I was there, his young sons were constantly swearing. He then shouted to them, “Stop your fucking swearing!”  It is no small wonder that his sons  continue to swear in public.

I will forever have an image of my mother staring me down with soap in her hand, warning me not to swear again. 

 I have however used profanity on occasion but never in front of my two daughters or in front of my five grandchildren. Hence, none of them used profanity in my presence.  That doesn`t mean that they don`t swear.

According to researchers from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, U.K., they concluded that "social" or "annoyance" swearing can make the workplace more pleasurable and even strengthen bonds between employees. That doesn’t make any sense to me.

Many years ago, there was a real mouthy woman in our office. She used profanity a great deal of the time when talking to us. It was annoying to me and others in the office. One day I told her that she is acting like a slut when she talks like that. She went to the boss and told him that I called her a slut. The boss asked me if I called her a slut. I told him that I had proof that she was a slut. He didn’t ask what proof I had. She and her husband later met with the boss and the boss told them that I had proof that she was a slut. She subsequently quit her job.

They and the boss thought I had proof that she was a woman who had many casual sex partners. That was not what I implied. The word slut also connotes someone who does not care that much about herself.  Obviously, any woman who uses foul language in the presence of men and women doesn`t really care about the image she portrays to them.  

While swearing in public has been found to promote a sense of "oneness" among employees and friends, swearing out of annoyance is an effective "relief mechanism" for stress, replacing a more "primitive physical aggression. Using the word “Oh fuck” can feel good when you’ve just slammed the car door on your hand. It is better than saying, “Oh goodness me.”

Saying a profanity lets off emotional and physiological steam. In moments of acute anger, it’s certainly preferable as a substitute to physical violence. And just as often, there’s no conscious undercurrent, no cognitive thinking it out before erupting into a blue streak of profanity anymore than you can control a sneeze. It is mostly cathartic since it is a kind of medicine which can literally make what hurts less painful by swearing a blue streak of profanity.

Of course, even social swearing has its limits. If swearing becomes excessive or verbally abusive, it becomes a form of bullying. This, far from boosting worker morale, can lead to loss of productivity, absenteeism, depression, low morale and stress to the recipient of the profanity. It’s like using the horn on your car because with a brief toot-toot warning and it is more appropriate than an infuriated blare. Did you know that it is against the law to blow your car horn for any reason in the City of Caracas?  When I was in Cairo, I rarely ever heard a car horn being blown. Unfortunately, in the United States and in Canada, when drivers blow their horns, it is as if they are witnessing Jesus Christ descending from heaven.  

Scientific studies have shown that teeing off with a spray of vulgarities has a corresponding physical effect such as pupils dilating, pores opening, heart rate increasing. Further, your blood pressure will probably spike if all those exclamatory words are kept inside you so it is necessary to let off some steam so to speak and using profanity is a safety valve for your heart. 

It can be socially acceptable to swear when you're amongst friends who also swear, but outside of such a safe environment, however, using profanity casually is likely to offend someone within earshot who doesn’t like to hear profanity. For example, would you swear in front of your priest?

As I said earlier, I have resorted to profanity on occasion. However there are three types of words I never use. They are as follows;

1. Mother fucker. I never call anyone by that name. It is highly unlikely that anyone has ever had sexual intercourse with his own mother. It is an extreme insult even though the person who uses that phase knows that the recipient of that phase has never fucked his mother. 

2. Cunt.  I have never called a woman by that name. It is also an extreme insult.

3. Asshole. I never use that word because an asshole is an important part of the human anatomy. It serves a useful purpose in our lives.

There are swear words that I do use. They are;

1.  Shit head. There are some people who are so stupid and who infuriate me because of their stupidity, I tell them that as far as I am concerned, they have shit for brains hence I refer to them as shit heads.

2.  Damned fool. Years ago when was practicing law, a witness was testifying against my client and his statements were so ridiculous I was force to object to what he had just said. I called the witness a dam fool for making those ridiculous statements. The judge yelled loudly, “I don’t permit profanity in this court Mister Batchelor.” As a recognized authority on the English language (having helped compile the Gage Canadian Dictionary in 1982, I decided to teach the judge a lesson on the English language. What I told him was as follows;  “A dam was a small coin shaped piece of metal used by either tool makers or wood workers in the Netherlands. It cost them mere pennies. Calling someone a dam fool is implying that like the dam, what they have to say is also of little value.  Hence, it is not a swear word."  

Using the word, damn is to imply that God had damned the fool. That doesn’t really make any sense at all since there is no way of knowing what God really does so it is pointless to use that particular word. 

In increasingly secular societies, blasphemous imprecations such as “goddamn” and “Jesus Christ” have lost their force and thus their no-no impact.

 I often hear people say, “Jesus Christ, that is stupid.” To use the name of Jesus Christ in vain is profane. I have no idea why people use his name like that. It is like they are addressing Jesus Christ and telling him that something is stupid. It makes no sense at all.

It is profane to tell people to fuck themselves (which is an impossibility) and for a man to tell someone else in anger to suck his cock is really insulting, which of course was the intent of the man who made that statement.  

It is not profane to tell someone to go to hell.

For those prudish readers of my blog who feel that I have offended them by including filthy words in this article, the only thing I can say to them is—“Go fuck yourself.”  To my other readers, I hope that you have found this article informative.