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This idea for a thread was borne out of my thread yesterday about the 20 year old who wore a really offensive t-shirt in public. Also, I was in Minneapolis last week and was having breakfast and this guy was next to me talking to his buddy and literally dropping the "f" bomb every 30 seconds; I found it really rude and offensive, but left it alone. as there were no young kids in the place.
When I ask do you curse, I'm not talking about letting out a "S#*T" when you spill coffee on yourself, but routinely pepper your conversation with the f-word, GD, and the like, regardless of where you are and who's around you.
I have in public but I have always tried to keep it down in case children are around and not to offend others who don't want to hear me.
It's funny because I work with kids and of course you can't swear. So over the years I have become creative in making up sayings so I don't accidentally slip in front of them. Stuff like "oh, potato salad" or "spaghetti and meatball sandwiches".
Sounds strange but it works for me. And they always laugh at what I say which shows me they are listening.
I hear a lot of swearing in public- I don't do it myself-
I think that swearing excessively as part of conversation is just an outcome of the general falling practical literacy of the population of this country-it is just laziness,and a result of slang overtaking public speech in the media heard by young children- look at interviews with some sports figures on the news, they sound like they could barely read if they had a gun to their head- I hear public conversations peppered with 'like' 'you know what I'm saying' and other such vocal crutches that swearing has also become- a vocal crutch-
I do not swear in public or in private. Swearing, to me, shows a lack of respect for yourself and for others and also shows a very limited vocabulary if that is the only way you can express your feelings. Of course, with my great vocabulary, I just say; "Oh piddle" when I'm upset. <grin>
I try not to have a "potty-mouth"; but, sometimes it happens. I'm not proud of it when it does. It is part and parcel of the culture to which I am sometimes exposed. Foul language, like dirt on the car, will rub off on a person from time to time. I do my best to keep it clean.
I cuss in public, though I try to make sure I don't do it when children are around or that I do it too loudly. Don't have a problem with it, just a means of expression as long as you aren't using cuss words with particularly negative connotations for specific groups of people (ie. slurs towards particular ethnicities, religions or sexual orientations). As for the T-Shirt issue, I'm more opposed to that. It is legal, but I think it is in very, very poor taste, it shows a lack of maturity and it's offensive purely for the sake of being offensive. Whenever I see someone with a T-Shirt with a cuss word emblazoned on it I want to tell them they need to grow up.
I think that swearing excessively as part of conversation is just an outcome of the general falling practical literacy of the population of this country-it is just laziness,and a result of slang overtaking public speech in the media heard by young children- look at interviews with some sports figures on the news, they sound like they could barely read if they had a gun to their head-
This may be the case in some, or even many, instances, but I just can't agree with you entirely on this point. I pepper my more informal conversations with friends with cuss words, as do my friends, and we're all highly educated (we're all doctoral students). Clearly, this isn't because of poor literacy. Rather, I think that younger generations, particularly younger generations from more 'liberal' states, tend to have fewer reservations about cuss words and view them as a means of showing the intensity of their opinions and as a means of suggesting informality.
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