Swearing and Insults

Photo by Aleksandr Burzinskij (Pexels)

Confession time: I swear a lot. Many people thought that it couldn’t be done but I am just subverting expectations left and right. The reason I am bringing this up is because it has been brought to my attention that swearing is bad. Shocking… I know.

I am not even kidding. Whenever I swear, especially in public, I always get dirty looks from bystanders and passers-by, and I didn’t know the exact reason as to why that is. I guess the people I have surrounded myself with are so used to swear words that they don’t even flinch anymore.

Sometimes I do pay attention to who is in my immediate surroundings when I know I could cuss because as it turns out there are some things parents don’t want their children to hear especially from a stranger standing nearby.

From a religious standpoint, sweares are sinners, so I guess that not only am I going to hell but I will not enter a church voluntarily from here on out to avoid having to watch what I say at any given time of day and any given location on earth.

Now looking back, I swear I grew up quite differently. Not a single swear word, insult or curse came out of my mouth (if they did, it was a dare and I don’t regret shirt). However, now I am going around and dropping f-bombs left and right. My question is what changed and if that change is good.

Quick side note here. For reference, I don’t feel comfortable swearing in writing therefore, I am using the good place profanity placeholders. Fuck is Fork. Shit is Shirt. Those are the words I use most frequently in a sentence but that does not mean I will shy away from other swear words.

Personally, I would want to blame the growing stressors in my life for the cuss increase. When I was a child, there wasn’t anything that could go wrong with serious consequences. Everything just felt so pressureless. Even if something of consequence went wrong, the consequences weren´t life-altering.

Now every decision that needs to be made has life-changing consequences. If it doesn’t involve decisions, it involves huge amounts of planning which have life-altering consequences. Even small things are blown out of proportion in my mind, making everything so much worse.

One way, I deal with stressful situations or with the fact that something went wrong is that I like to swear a lot. Now, I don’t even think about it, it just slips out whether I like it or not. Something bad happens? Bam, swear word. Someone did something wrong? Bam, insult.

To be fair, I also believe that I just got exposed to profanity which is responsible for the increase in swearing. My parents did not like it when I swear at home but in school, everyone swears even the teachers and sometimes, I would do too. Not to fit in but some occasions call for stronger language.

I can still remember the first time my classmates found out I could swear. It was fun. It was also during PE class. I believe that we were running warm-up laps and were about to start playing tennis or hockey. It was six years ago, so I don’t remember every detail.

Something happened, I guess, otherwise I wouldn’t have cussed. Under my breath, I just cursed shirt. To be fair, I thought no one heard. I didn’t want anyone to hear (because cussing is generally considered bad) at the same time I couldn’t have cared less.

Suddenly, one of my classmates just gasped which caught my attention. She jokingly asks how dare I. Trying to preserve my “innocent” reputation, I defended that it was an accident. My classmate was not quiet, and others caught on. After a bit of light mockery, something else became the next hot gossip topic.

The reason why I remember this day to a certain degree is because I thought my classmates already knew that I was a bit foul-mouthed. At least, I never hide that fact. Maybe also because I kept to myself most of the time. I don’t know.

Anyhow, I also like to point toward the people I like to surround myself with for the “sudden” increase of swear words. Since I like to surround myself with people who are open-minded and they generally don’t censor themselves as much.

Without the need to censor themselves, they are just generally much more fun to be around. Someone you can insult without any serious repercussion (maybe a sick burn but that is pretty much it). That is just far more relaxing than having to watch everything that is being said.

Most people who are against cursing are uptight, self-righteous and judgmental. On the one hand, I understand where they are coming from, but I do believe that they take themselves way too serious. Therefore, one can say I am not surrounded by the best influence in the swearing department.

 

Much to the dismay of many, I spent most of my time cursing other people´s names and insulting the shirt out of people who actually don’t deserve it. They never find out so I can sleep just fine. When I insult someone, I actually don’t mean it.

For me, insulting people is a sign of care in my language. If I can air out and put anything that annoys me about you into an insult, that just means that I am comfortable enough with you to do so. Any insults shouldn’t be taken seriously (but at the same time do).

Sadly (at least I consider it to be sad), I am not very creative with my swear words and insults. The reason for that may be that I didn’t hear as many swear words and insults as a child, unlike some other creative swearers.

However, it is not a complete loss either because a too creative insult may not be taken as an insult at all. This might cause people in your immediate surrounding to not know that you are incredibly stressed or frustrated.

Nowadays, whenever I am around my parents or anyone else who is sensitive to swear words and insults, I try to replace the “bad” words with not offensive words that sound similar. You can hear me say fork off many times during the day.

Some other times, I use other words as swear words. For instance, I use the noun ding-dong because informally it describes “a silly or foolish person” but most people don’t know the double meaning of this lovely noun.

Most of the time you could hear me call every slow traffic participant a forking ding-dong because that is the person I am. The recipient of that insult can´t really be insulted because they don´t know if it was an insult or an impersonation of a bell. That is the beauty of that insult.

Whenever I want to curse for irritating me in a frustrating manner, I sometimes, just say “curses XYZ”. Just like how Dr Heinz Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb would call out “curse you perry the platypus” after the platypus who escapes the doomed crime scene.

To be fair, I also want to curse my frenemies like how Dr Doofenshmirtz curses his lifelong nemesis perry the platypus but no other name and their title has the same ring to it as cursing after the platypus flying away with his tiny jetpack.

The reason I swapped out insulting words for non-threatening words (in the eyes of society) is simply that my dad did it and he gets away with swearing without swearing. I just want the liberty and freedom to do the same.

My father always cusses “children!” when something goes incredibly wrong. As a child, I used to turn my head and ask why he has called because what child wouldn´t? It took some time to understand that “children!” and “children” are not the same.

However, my father couldn’t have picked a worse scapegoat for a swear word because sometimes he would call out “children”, but I would assume that he was cussing. It was a whole kafuffle that up to this day is not quite resolved because even now in his eyes we are still his children.

As a child, I could just hope that dad was not too irritated when he calls “children” because if he was hell would break loose. When that happens no parent likes a child who rationally explains that the mistake was of their own making.

Recently, I have been asked why I look/feel so comfortable swearing and to that, I can only say that I don’t put a malicious meaning behind that unredeemable word. For me, it is just a word that slips out whenever something bad happens.

It is not a word, I would use to curse a person and their offspring or anything. It is just a word. A word which is neither good nor bad if you don’t put meaning behind it and that is what swear words are for me. The question is why people are so offended when there was no meaning behind it.

A bad word is only bad in the ear of the recipient, which means that it shouldn´t be me who should feel ashamed for cussing in public on a regular basis but it should be the offended person who puts the hurtful meaning behind that innocent word.

Ergo when someone gets offended it is not my fault (in my opinion). Because it is not my fault that the offended person has such a dirty mind which is able to put an offensive meaning behind something that just came out.

Sometimes I believe I just need to come with a disclaimer. So, the people who believe cussing only shows how disrespectful and inconsiderate someone is, can´t be offended when they hear a swear word flying through the air.

Since I know many people know the bad side of swearing, I would like to point out some of the good. For instance. Cursing may be a sign of intelligence since those good with language are also good at generating swear words.

Knowing when it is appropriate to swear and when it´s not is also a sign of social intelligence. A skill many of the people protesting against swearing don’t poss. Which is just sad. The world could be so much better with socially intelligent people.

Most people always accuse me of being brutally honest and swearing might have contributed to that since studies have shown a positive link between cussing and honesty. However, that does not mean all swearers are honest people.

Swearing gives you a sense of calm, control, and well-being. Doing it can also increase circulation, elevate endorphins, and boost your mood. To a certain level, swearing can also increase pain tolerance which explains why I cuss the most whenever I am in pain.

Last but not least, it is better to drop some curses than to throw some punches. Swearing allows us to express ourselves without needing to resort to physical aggression. It also notifies bystanders of the current emotional state without letting them get caught in the crossfires.

Sometimes, I also believe that swearing just lightens a tense mood. I have no study to back up that fact but if someone can swear and the rest can just laugh about is just more freeing than having to navigate through a minefield.

In this article, I am not defending swearing, I am just explaining why I do what I do with some facts to back it up. Out of curiosity, I also explored the reason why I started to swear in the first place since babies are not born with an inventory of insults.

Whether you are for or against swearing, I understand your point of view. I just don’t understand why some have to stop others from swearing just because they are not comfortable with it. I swear a lot, just deal with it.

All things considered; I don’t believe that swearing is neither good nor bad. I just think swearing is a natural reaction to a bad situation. You can see it one way or another, one thing is for sure, swearing and insults are not going away any time soon.