Just Curious, Cussing

I just wanted to get a wide variety of opinions on something I was talking to a friend about. What makes an expletive and expletive. By definition

1. linguistics swearword: an exclamation, especially a swearword


2. grammar word with no meaning: a word that carries no meaning but has a grammatical function in a sentence. In the sentence "There are three books on the table," "there" is an expletive.


3. poetry meaningless word in line of poetry: a word added to a line of verse in order to fill it out, usually for the sake of the meter. In the line "When and that I was a little tiny lad," the words "and that" are expletives.

So I think, ok when you say fudge or shoot instead of those others that are considered cuss words why are theses seemingly harmless words not then cuss words? They have become expletives. They are put in place of those so called bad words but have the same meaning, using it in the same context. Why are they ok to say but not the others? Because somene long ago said they were bad? I personally use quite a few so called cuss words in my daily vocabulary. To me those words mean far less then they apparently do to other people. If you de-value those words by using them, then they lose their sting and soon mean nothing. They become like boobs in france. they are only bad words because someone said they were. how come someone else got to choose the bad words. I wanna choose one. From now on the word spiff is a bad word. as in "Spiff!!! I spilled my coffee!!! Now spiff off!"

As I said just curious to find out others opinions.

I believe that the once-'moral' majority were responsible for the censuring of certain words in our vocabulary.
Personally....I sometimes use crude words to express my feelings, but I don't use cursing-type words, like GD or SOB or DY.
Since I also believe that the word is made flesh and dwells among us, I'm usually very careful about what words issue from my mouth and from my pen/keyboard.

but why are they bad words? and what makes them different from the seemingly nice ones you would replace them with? darn, dang, shoot, fudge etc

I don't see them as 'bad' words. They are merely 'crude' words; and the moral majority who ruled things for so many centuries mistakenly thought that crude words were 'bad' words and should not be spoken nor heard by an elite (refined) society.
Maybe that's how class warfare began.....people negatively judging each other by their crude or refined expressions.
Didn't Jesus even use some 'crude' words now and then?
Heck, with the way our newer generations have been creating their own vocabulary (with some fairly 'crude' words of their own), it's pretty petty of society to try to maintain this sham.

well i try my best NOT to cuss... i am 16 but i think that cussing is vulger and you can talk just fine without it.

worst whipping I ever got in my life was from my Grandma. I said the word "golly" and she heard me. 'NUFF SAID

That's exactly what I am talking about. Grandma decided golly was a bad word. Where as most of us see it completely harmless. George Carlin's seven dirty words have been cut down too. I think there is 3 of them I haven't heard on regular television and I know I have heard them all on HBO. I believe the series "the soprano's" used all of them. So who decided they weren't dirty anymore? and if not dirty anymore why were they in first place? once banned from the airwaves but no more?

Found this online about the topic, thought it was pretty on target..
http://www.preservedwords.com/cussing-pv.htm

Though I must admit while I attempt to refrain from cussing ..I do at times use those non cuss replacement type words ..which really is often just a toned down way to cuss ..so I will need to be a bit more thoughtful when I speak.

Interesting Shutterbug, thank you for sharing that. But I did find some of it a bit far fetched. There were a few words there that I felt were stretched to fit their definition. Gadzooks = God's hooks" for instance or Zounds or 'Swounds = God's wounds . The writer states that "Shinola, " "Shoot, "
"Shucks, " "Sugar, " etc., all refer to the modern and vulgar barnyard reference to dung." In the same aspect are we not allowed to say dung now because it is reference to that so called vulgar word? These are equations he is stating so it goes both ways. Each person takes what they want out of something. Each person having a mind of their own can have different views of it then someone else. The only thing I see there as a cuss word is taking the lords name in vain. Then again when kids are saying things like dangit and what not, do they know it is a version of something else. And if not, then are they really taking the lords name in vain? This brings on alot of questions and cause for deep thought.

That's where I'm at. I cringe when I hear GD or JC used in a cussing manner.

And in Britian, I was told that "Bloody" is like using the "F" word over here.

I grew up with a dad who cussed like a sailor all day long. And the madder he got, the more 'creative' he'd get, trying to string as many cuss words together as possible, almost like he was getting even with a frustrating situation by cussing like that.

When my son was very young (around 8-10 yrs. old), using for the first time an unacceptable word (like dammit, I think it was).....I told him that he could use the word 'sh_t' to release his frustrations instead of any of the other 'bad' words, since 'sh_t' was merely a crude word for something natural and was not cursing or damning anything or anyone.
He felt relieved to have that freedom of expression and used it exclusively.

Well I was bound and determined to not swear when Mitch was little.......

I was putting in a window A/C unit when he was about 10 months old. I pinched myself, and let out with the "F" word, then turned and realized Mitch was in the room. I felt bad, but went back to my work and watched my mouth.

A week later, I was shopping at our local supermarket, when who should I run in to, but our pastor. He had baptized Mitch about a month earlier.

He came up to us, said "Hey little Mitch, how we doing today?"

Mitch smiles up at him, and says "F**K!"

I was mortified. The pastor was speechless.

That's the best laugh I've had in a coon's age! Thanks for the picker-upper, Scotto.

Great topic, TBB. I remember in high school one of my history teachers explaining where some of our 'dirty words' came from. The only origin I seem to remember is the F-word.

For
Unlawful
Carnal
Knowledge

As it was told to me it was a crime that someone was sentenced for back in the day, which really explains a lot IMO. If you got caught f***ing around, they threw you in the f***ing jail for f***ing up.

The_Bountiful_Beauty said:

Well I don't know if stretched as far as origins .. but certainly some are accurate .. shinola I heard growing up back East paired with the S word. Sugar I heard used as an euphemism for the same. But the point is ..is the word , any word .. inserted as a replacement for a vulgar, coarse or curse word. Do we really need to insert them? .. for example could we say something is REALLY wet , EXTREMELY wet ... or in our anger that something we owned that got wet .. do we insert vulgar, coarse or curse words? Or words that are sanitized versions of the same? And I believe all 3 types should be considered.

I was always told it was

Fornication
Under
Consent of the
King

I can't remember the full story but you were not allowd to have children for some reason. So no fornication without permission.

Well I don't know if stretched as far as origins .. but certainly some are accurate .. shinola I heard growing up back East paired with the S word. Sugar I heard used as an euphemism for the same. But the point is ..is the word , any word .. inserted as a replacement for a vulgar, coarse or curse word. Do we really need to insert them? .. for example could we say something is REALLY wet , EXTREMELY wet ... or in our anger that something we owned that got wet .. do we insert vulgar, coarse or curse words? Or words that are sanitized versions of the same? And I believe all 3 types should be considered.

that last part was taken out of context you left out the part after it, the part that I was actually talking about. This is the part that went together.

The writer states that "Shinola, " "Shoot, " "Shucks, " "Sugar, " etc., all refer to the modern and vulgar barnyard reference to dung." In the same aspect are we not allowed to say dung now because it is reference to that so called vulgar word?


Shinola and whatnot were not to be seen as far fetched in my statement but rahter to take that equation and look at it both ways. I have heard all of them used as apparently harmless ways off avoiding the so called vulgar words as well.

This post has been edited by The_Bountiful_Beauty on Nov 12 2009, 02:31 AM

Actually, it's an awesome Van Halen album.

the F word according to wikipedia

The word's use is considered obscene in polite circles, but may be common in informal and domestic situations. It is unclear whether the word has always been considered vulgar, and if not, when it first came to be used to describe (often in an extremely angry, hostile or belligerent manner) unpleasant circumstances or people in an intentionally offensive way, such as in the term motherf-er, one of its more common usages in some parts of the English-speaking world. In the modern English-speaking world, the word f-k is often considered highly offensive. Most English-speaking countries censor it on television and radio. Some have argued that the prolific usage of the word f-k has de-vulgarized it, an example of the "dysphemism treadmill". Despite its offensive nature, the word is common in popular usage.

The highly profane term remains a taboo word to many people in English-speaking countries, while others feel the word remains inappropriate in social etiquette when used by a male in the presence of women. The word also carries a sacrilegious connotation to some. Many religious people oppose the use of profane, vulgar, and "curse" words which they see as offensive to a deity. Finally, it is considered highly offensive to utter the word in the presence of children.

Non-English-speaking cultures tend to recognize the word's vulgarity. However, it generally is not censored as frequently in those forums.

The Canadian Press now considers the word to be commonplace and has added usage advice to the Canadian Press Caps and Spelling guide.

Wikipedia

The Oxford English Dictionary states that the ultimate origin is uncertain, but that the word is "probably cognate" with a number of native Germanic words with meanings involving striking, rubbing, and having sex.