swearing - nowhere to go?

[Jock]

When I was a slip of a lad, swearing in general was frowned upon in most areas of society (this is Britain I'm talking about here). The "rough" types would use "Bl**dy" and "bu88er" but never would the F word be used except in close knit male groups. Examples include armed personnel, manual workers, etc. I never heard the C word until I was well in my teens.

All that has changed and the F word is in everyday use everywhere. I have heard children as young as 6 saying it. Even the C word can be heard, though not as much.

But what am I saying here? In my youth the F word had the power to shock, and to express extreme emotion. Nowadays, through over familiarity, it has lost these "powers" as has the C word to some extent. We now have no powerful swear words to express these extreme emotions. I think humans need these words as a release in stressful times, but like penicillin in Africa, the power is lost.

I read a story the other day in which the bad guy at the end just kept repeating the F word as though by repetition the power could be restored.

So, where the heck do we go now?

[crfriend]

If you figure this one out, Jock, please let at least me know. This question has vexed me for years as there is now no real way for me to let out a proper blast when a situation requires it. Sometimes quietly hanging one's head and shaking it just isn't enough.

[Sinned]

I suppose that it's down to the individual, really. I don't swear as a rule which means that when I do it has that emphasis - that shock value. So when I was younger and others around me would use a swear word as every alternate word I would just ignore it and at the end just say something like " And you could have said that in half the number of words and still got your point across." Or even, "I don't swear and I don't like those around me swearing, especially in front of my children." Interestingly, because I don't swear people around me don't tend to either. I didn't have a sheltered upbringing either - in my formative years I was in an area of heavy steel engineering - rolling mills and girder construction so the men were truly working class and earthy.

I don't like so-called comedians who use lots of swear words in their acts - it just shows a lack of sophistication and imagination. The best comedians I can think of had clean humour - maybe suggestive but without swearing - from Tony Hancock onwards. The Golden Age of Comedy.

[Jack Williams]

A lot of people these days seem to have a very limited vocabulary, so can't put a point accross without profanity.
Maybe schooling ain't what it used to be. We weren't even supposed to use "ain't" when I was at school.

[Sinned]

The Primary School I attended had superb teachers and their teaching of grammar hit a sympathetic note with me. I then went on to a Grammar School which reinforced that teaching so I tend to be a bit pernickety about spelling and grammar. I even do the long words in texts and resist the shortened versions. Nowadays I sometimes have to grep ( from the UNIX command meaning to search for something ) around for the correct word to use in the particular circumstance but I get there eventually. Language evolves but sometimes in directions that it shouldn't go. I say things that I wouldn't write down and write things that I wouldn't say - verbal and written languages are two completely different beasts.

[Kirbstone]

I agree, verbal and written language ARE frequently very different.

Learning a foreign language up to a useful level in my middle age I found German written down to be very logical and straightforward once a few rules were taken on board.
This proved to be very different from the colloquial German actually spoken by the Germans themselves...'Umgangsprache' is their word for it, literally meaning communications-speech.
Most of what I would say in that language now is certainly not to be found in the Berlitz language courses or indeed even in a dictionary, yet I am instantly understood....there, but it involves no swear words at all.

Tom K.

[crfriend]

The Primary School I attended had superb teachers and their teaching of grammar hit a sympathetic note with me.

I was privileged to have a positively massive head start on most youngsters by the time I entered the school system, and that's down to my family -- Dad was an English major, my grandmother had a Masters degree in biology, and my grand-dad was an MD. I got taught very early on how to wield the language, in both its spoken and written forms by the most powerful means available -- by example (and the occasional cold stare when I got something wrong). My mother (whom I never got to know) was, by training, a mathematician although she was denied a degree in it because of her sex (this, recall, was in 1961); instead of a Bachelor's degree in mathematics she instead took a degree in her minor subject, German, which was a cakewalk as she was fluent in it when she got to college. (None, or at least very little, of my mother's numeracy managed to get into me, and I never developed much of a liking for biology, but always adored computers. Go figure.)

A dirty little secret I'll let the forum in on is that I view the written and spoken languages so differently that I write using UK ("The Queen's") English whereas I converse in very unremarkable "Network American". Uncle Al is the only active member on the forum now that's heard me speak (Bob, now Elizabeth, being the other), and, while my speaking style is rather different from my writing style, it's usually apparent who's behind the curtain. However, as in my writing style, I very seldom feel the need to utter expletives in order to drive a point home when speaking.

The folks who raised me are now long gone, but I try to do their memory an honour by keeping my language skills sharp. It's the least I can do to return the amazing gift they gave me so very long ago.

On another note, and to touch on one of "Sinned's" (great play that moniker is!) notion is that perhaps the most important skill that needs to be taught early on is how to find things. The ability to find answers, hints, or techniques is frequently vastly more important than having it in one's brain. There is never any shame whatsoever in saying, "I don't know" as if one knows how to look for "it" one can follow the "I don't know" with a hearty, "Let's go find out!"

[Sarongman]

I don't swear and haven't ever found any necessity to do so however, I am fairly inured to it, having "been around" so to speak. What I find amusing is how the Irish and, to some extent, my fellow Australians interpose a different vowel for THAT word. This highly irreverent and cheeky example from a member of my "family" in Dublin for your enjoyment.

Jaysus.jpg

[Jack Williams]

Love it! And I ain't (aren't?) even a rugby follower.
It'd be a change if the furken Black Caps could win a few.

[Tor]

On another note, and to touch on one of "Sinned's" (great play that moniker is!) notion is that perhaps the most important skill that needs to be taught early on is how to find things. The ability to find answers, hints, or techniques is frequently vastly more important than having it in one's brain. There is never any shame whatsoever in saying, "I don't know" as if one knows how to look for "it" one can follow the "I don't know" with a hearty, "Let's go find out!"

I'll heartily agree with that one - and add that this is only becoming more true as time goes on and both the difficulty of finding information and the average useful lifespan of information fall. The latter timeframe varies rather widely by field, though, while the former is probably changing more consistantly.

As for swearing, I once spent about a month swearing all the time when I stayed with someone who did. These days I choose not to, and once spent most of six months around folk who did, and, IIRC, used each of two such words once, in a nominative sense - when I told one of them that there had been a time I did use such words. If people want to use such words around me I'll not tell them no, but I won't join in.

[Kirbstone]

Re: Rugby Union,

Truth is, the Irish side had been having a lacklustre year this year and with a half time score of 22-7 in their favour the All Blacks had to work a bit to get even. Because the Irish 'rushed' that last kick too soon the All Blacks were allowed retake it and it was the decider.

The Irish crowd were happy enough to have their side come so close to defeating the almighty All Blacks.

You won't find much of what was said in Dublin pubs that evening in dictionaries!

Tom K.

[crfriend]

[The notion of the ability to find information rather than "knowing it"] is only becoming more true as time goes on and both the difficulty of finding information and the average useful lifespan of information fall. The latter timeframe varies rather widely by field, though, while the former is probably changing more consistantly.

The difficulty of finding information is actually getting more intense as there are altogether too many sources from which one needs to try and ferret the actual facts from (and we'll leave "truth" out of it altogether) assorted noise. It was one thing when there was the card-catalogue at the local library, and failing in that regard the one in the nearest big-city library, most of which would have factual references; today, anybody that can even remotely run a computer can get listed in any number of search-engines and be intermixed with real subject-matter experts. I'm not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing, but it's something to be aware of if one is looking for factual information. Sometimes the only way to discern fact from fiction (or misunderstanding) is to already have some knowledge of the subject at hand, and that's not always possible. In short, the 'Net is a mixed blessing, and sometimes I wonder if it's not a curse.

[Tor]

The difficulty of finding information is actually getting more intense as there are altogether too many sources from which one needs to try and ferret the actual facts from (and we'll leave "truth" out of it altogether) assorted noise. It was one thing when there was the card-catalogue at the local library, and failing in that regard the one in the nearest big-city library, most of which would have factual references; today, anybody that can even remotely run a computer can get listed in any number of search-engines and be intermixed with real subject-matter experts. I'm not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing, but it's something to be aware of if one is looking for factual information. Sometimes the only way to discern fact from fiction (or misunderstanding) is to already have some knowledge of the subject at hand, and that's not always possible. In short, the 'Net is a mixed blessing, and sometimes I wonder if it's not a curse.

I can't fault the "needing to know in order to find out", and have seen first hand the interesting variety of "facts" one can find. A bit of considered thinking will get you a long way, though. There are also times when the published big-name sources are behind the times and false, leaving the internet as the only source for good information. I'll grant that in the latter case, the real information almost invariably also exists somewhere buried in technical publications most mortals won't be able to find - though the internet does help with that.

[Sinned]

Just another thing about my upbringing. My parents were not rich and both worked to enable the family to live. Consequently I went to a nursery attached to the Primary School from, I don't know, 3 or 4 years old. Now that nursery must have been progressive or maybe I just liked reading ( which I do as I have always and still do read a lot ) but I learnt to read in the nursery and I remember painting pictures and stuff. So when I went into Primary School apparently I already knew what they were going to teach so they moved me up a year. So I was always the youngest kid in the class. That presented a problem when it came to going to Grammar School as the authorities were adamant about not accepting me there before I was 11 years old so spent my last year at Primary being taught individually by the headmaster, Mr Parker ( never did know his first name ). It was he that taught me how to find out things by setting me little projects to do. He even took me down to the main library in town to get books out. As fine an example of a teacher as ever there was.

Yes the internot is great for finding things but you still have to sort out the pearls from the general dross, so an inquisitive and analytical mind helps. My main pastime is family history aka genealogy and I find that these same skills are needed to resolve conflicting, misleading and incorrect information as people tended to exaggerate, mislead and even lie for their own reasons

[Jack Williams]

Sorting the pearls from the dross is one of the joys of life.