Where do I stand on bad language? It has been a while since I have looked a plinky with both the time and the inclination to write - and I scored an awesome topic. To swear or not to swear.
Well I think it is a little bit more gray scale than the black and white picture they are trying to put it here. In the words of the plinky prompt Some people love to swear. For others it makes them cringe. There are far more levels to it than that - take it from somebody in a profession of heavy swearing.
So for the rest of this post I am going to show you the different levels of swearing that I see in my daily life and I am going to explain why I don't give a rats about swearing anymore. Why I do it perhaps more than many but less than so many more.
The levels of swearing - I think I'll start at the bottom.
Oh Ye of Innocent Ears These are the people so far at the bottom of the swearing food chain it is pretty much completely over their heads. They will know a couple of swear words (and cringe when they hear them) but there will also be many more which provided the swearer uses it fluently they won't understand the word or realise that it is swearing.
Sugar, Spice & Everything Nice Well... minus the spice... These are the well behaved misses (I'm sorry but I simply haven't met a guy with this kind of perspective on swearing) who keep rough enough company to have heard most swear words. However they refuse to let anybody get away with one little word without a page long in depth complaint about how bad using that word is.
The Conscientious Objectors You'll probably never hear these guys (and by guys I do mean both men and women ok) let a swear word drop but they see the sense in just letting the words flow around them. They may occasionally object to significant unnecessary swearing but more often than not they just leave people to their own expressive devices.
Stressed-Out Swearer These are some of the more fun swearers. After all when you make them swear you know you've gotten them to stress out, freak out or get frustrated. This is probably a subgroup of the 'Conscientious Objector'. They try hard not to but in the end they can't help it.
Social Swearer These guys will swear in the right (or should that be wrong) company. They wouldn't normally say it but they don't mind their friends swearing and more than that they don't mind doing it a little themselves. Though they try to constrain themselves in more generalised company.
Consistent Swearer These guys don't live and breath swear words but you are pretty well guaranteed to hear one or two while you are talking to them. They will have particular uses for each of their swear words and as such will just use them much the way they would use any other word in their vocabulary.
The Chain Swearer You've heard of the chain smoker? These are the chain swearers. They use swear words about as often as they use normal language. Hell if you think about it you can't even work out how they FIT that many swear words into such a short sentence.
Me... While I'd like to say I am a Conscientious Objector... I was once upon a time now I am a Consistent Swearer. Though I would like to suggest that is a rather broad category and I hang about at the bottom end. Sometimes when people use swear words unnecessarily I will speak up against it... but that is very rarely after all I use them rather too frequently myself to get mad at others.
I guess I slipped into the habit because I hated the overreaction of some Sugar, Spice and Everything Nice people and I at the time failed to see the middle ground Conscientious Objector option. It was a reasonable slow slide after being surround by a group of people made predominately of the last two categories... I know a number of chain swearers.
I'd love to stop swearing... it makes me feel a little bit guilty when I think about how much more I swear compared with most of my friends - I don't mind swearing but I would prefer not to be 'the swearer'. However stopping swearing is like trying to train your self out of using the word 'like' in a sentence (Yes I know I am speaking about a specifically gen Y language construct there) - I like mean using it like like like like... you know how it sounds and I admit to still having the occasionally extra like though I was never particularly bad for it and I trained it out many years ago...
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