What's so wrong with curse words?

[Pulse]

DICKBAGS!

Sorry, learned a new word today.

DICKBAGS!

I ****ing laughed.

 

[ríomhaire]

We don't take cursing at all seriously here. When my sister went to New York she said that they take cursing really really seriously over there and every time she said one she got shocked looks from Americans.

 

[NeptuneUK]

Curse words began with one of the invaders of the British isles, (or maybe multiple) attempting to get rid of native english words (from the saxons).
Ive forgotten a lot of the related information but Im sure theres a place on the internets explaining.


edit: By some guy on a forum, I quote:

"If anybody here thinks they have the right to tell others what language they should or shouldn't use here is a free educational lesson especially for you:

To summarize for those with a low attention span:

By discriminating against swear words or those that use them you are showing that you have fallen victim to a highly successful Norman propoganda scheme to wipe out Anglo-Saxon culture.


Forbidden words - teaching a child about swearing - includes etymology of some of today's vulgar words
Mothering, Wntr, 1991 by Claudia Chapman
Forbidden Words

Bran said a swear! Bran said a swear!" "Really?" I'll ask. "What did he say?" "The S word!" (or "The F word!" or "The A word!" or "The B word!") the informer will say. Most often I'll reply, "So?" At that, the look of gleeful anticipation on the informer's face usually turns to disappointment and confusion. No scene, no punishment will be forthcoming; an explanation, however, is sure to follow.

In our family, the "bad words" are the ones that people use to hurt one another. A common word that evolved from the Old German verb fokken--meaning to thrust vigorously--simply cannot compare. How curious it is that this simple and succinct term for the act of sexual intercourse has come to be used as an insult, or worse yet, as a synonym for botching things up.

Curses and Swears

While growing up in Brooklyn, I was told that certain words were curse words. "Don't ever let me catch you using that word again!" I was told the first time I experimented with a new word I had heard. Next came the pressing question: "Who told you that word?" The mother of the child who taught me the word was informed. His mother washed out his mouth with soap. Later that day, the chastised child reported back to the group--which was by then obsessively curious about the word--that according to his mother, it was a word the devil himself used. And that the devil tried to trick us into using his words as a way of gaining power over us. I took this to mean that the devil had his own sinister language, and I spent some very shaky hours terrified that I would slip and say a dreaded curse.

In those days in Brooklyn, the children spoke of curses; today in Connecticut, they speak of swears. Curious about why certain words are called swears, I asked a group of girls for an explanation. One nine year old put it this way: "A swear is a bad word you're not supposed to say. In the Bible, it says not to swear." I knew that she was referring to the biblical injunctions against swearing oaths and taking the name of the Lord in vain by calling for divine damnation on persons or objects. But clearly this is not what the girls were up to when they used swears.

A day or two later, the same girls were giggling happily over a modified version of "Yankee Doodle," in which they challenged one another to begin each word with the letter F: "Fanky Foodle fent to fown, fiding on a fony....." Almost anyone who was not already in on the joke could be tricked into saying the swear word. This was considered good fun.

Thoughtful children, and adults as well, wonder why the forbidden words offend. "Why are children told that curses and swears are not used by "nice" people? To understand how English profanity developed, we need to examine how modern English developed.

Our language is rooted in Great Britain, a nation with a long history of migration, war, and conquest. Each time it was invaded, its language was invaded as well. The ancient Celtic tribes of the British Isles were conquered by the Romans and later by the Saxon tribes of the northern continent, both of whom brought new languages with them. The Saxons were later conquered by the Normans, who regarded the tribes as uncouth barbarians with a culture and language vastly inferior to their own. Thus, Norman words soon supplanted and supplemented many of the Anglo-Saxon terms.

Belief systems were changing as well. The Catholic Church began converting people from the older Celtic and Saxon earth-based religions, with their more tolerant views of sexuality. As attitudes changed, the status of Anglo-Saxon terms for bodily parts and functions slipped from second-rate to obscene. To this day, the word penis, which comes from the Latin of the celibate clergy, is considered proper, while the Anglo-Saxon term cock is considered obscene. Arse, the Old Scottish word that evolved into ass, is regarded as improper, whereas the Norman word derriere is considered polite, even witty.

Many of the words said to be swears in modern English--a language having far more words than any other--can actually be described as Anglo-Saxonisms. These words were part of the ordinary language of the people prior to invasion. Curiously, nations and tribes that have not been conquered by people speaking a different language tend not to develop a separate set of "improper" terms for bodily parts and functions. In fact, aboriginal dialects that have survived into the 20th century often do not include profanity.

The Anglo-Saxon terms for these organs, functions, and behaviors may indeed be called uncouth--provided that we understand the word in its original sense. The Old English word uncuth meant unfamiliar or strange. The shift in meaning to tis current definition reflects the curious history of the forbidden words themselves. Once merely new and unfamiliar, they are now considered crude and vulgar."

 

[Dog--]

We don't take cursing at all seriously here. When my sister went to New York she said that they take cursing really really seriously over there and every time she said one she got shocked looks from Americans.

tbh, it's probably because of the accent (Irish accent?), I've noticed that, while walking down the street in a town where most of the population speaks with an English accent (Canadian/American English accent), if you drop something, and say "oh F*ck.." out loud, you'll probably get like 1-3 looks. Now if you have a, say, Pakistani accent in walk down the street in an American/Canadian town, drop something and say "oh f*ck.." out loud, in a Pakistani accent, you'll probably get like 2-3 times more looks.

Although you'd have to look Pakistani, think of a white-pale guy walking down the street dropping something and saying "oh f*ck.." in a Pakistani accent, you'll probably be looked at because people would be trying to figure it out.

Snobs who think their country is better then all the others, who think tourists (people with accents different from their own) should act all friendly and never swear should be shot. That's probably the only reason your sister would have gotten looks. "OMG someone who talks different swore! burn her!"

I for one don't really care about how loud someone swears in public.. It's called free speech. Although if they came up to me and and starting swearing at me in a violent way, I'd probably sock them in the face.





As for the topic, I swear at the right times, like if I drop something, I'd say "oh f*ck.." or "shit" or something along those lines, but not loudly, usually in a low voice. I wouldn't say stuff like "wtf where the f*ck is that f*cking dog... f*ck."

 

[MorganFreeman911]

I take offense to that you pissing asshole.

I take offense to that you mother****ing ass **** shit-faced ass ****ing ****er

 

[Que-Ever]

We don't take cursing at all seriously here. When my sister went to New York she said that they take cursing really really seriously over there and every time she said one she got shocked looks from Americans.

I don't think she was really in New York... In New York you could stick an american flag in your pants and start humping it and nobody would even look at you.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Yeah but he probably means 'shocked looks from Americans she was with/talking to' not just random ones on the street.

I will admit I have encountered more Americans over the internet who are shocked and appalled by swearing than I have encountered such people in real life in Britain.

 

[Darkside55]

That's really weird. I suppose it depends on where you are in America, but over here swearing's like a national pasttime. New York too I'd wager; we're very similar.

In CA at least our speech is peppered with curse words in daily conversation. In some cases, heaped on more than peppered, although I will say that an overabundance of cursing makes the speaker sound unintelligent, or grasping for adjectives. A choice word for punctuation here and there though, that's commonplace.