No Swearing!

No Swearing to me is such a silly rule. Why not? It seems such a superficial thing to get uptight about.

They’re just words. Words that WE subscribe to be ‘good’ or ‘bad’ words. But they are just words. In fact, most of the time they’re adjectives, and very descriptive ones too!

When I first started writing for the web I had a few people tell me that no swearing would be a good policy to adopt because it would ensure I got taken more seriously.

I considered it for a brief moment, and then thought ‘screw that!’ Taken seriously by whom? I LIKE swearing. It is my style to use SOME swear words and some slang words in my speech, and I write the way I talk. So the no swearing idea was swiftly tossed on its ear.

Sure, there is such a thing as an overuse of swearing, but the only way that could occur is if the person using the language was not COMFORTABLE with that language, so it would sound put on. We all have our own unique voice, and when we naturally use that, there is no such thing as overdone.

My natural style is to swear a bit, now and then, but if I started using swear words in every sentence, it would be overdone, because I don’t talk like that, so it just wouldn’t be me. And that would be the only reason it would seem overdone.

When my brother was about 10 he had an Offspring T Shirt. This T Shirt contained a line from the song “Bad Habit”. Emblazoned in huge white letters over a black background was: "You Stupid Dumbshit Goddamn Motherfcuker."

Now taken at face value, that might sound like really aggressive hate speech, but if you knew the song - well, it was a parody of road rage, and that line actually comes across as extremely humorous.

He proudly wore this to school for a fun run at the end of term. Of course he got into a fair bit of trouble.

My mother was called. She vigorously defended my brother’s right to wear whatever he chose. The school wouldn’t budge, his choices were to wear another shirt, or to go home. He went home.

At the time my brother had some problems with anger management and actually used this kind of language, not humorously or descriptively, but aggressively. This wasn’t a big surprise as he was just mirroring my father. So it was a bit of a problem at the time, but one that he grew out of.

Context is everything. The most benign words can be curse words in the right context. How the language is being used is more important than the actual words. But using swear words as adjectives? They’re just words up for grabs against all the rest of your vocabulary, no more or less worthy. Sure the same meaning can be created using other words, but oh come on! Does it really matter?

One thing that my mother always said that stuck with me is that people with wonderful manners and superficial charm who never say a thing wrong could so easily be bad inside, yet society is so dead keen to open every door to them, while the person who is rough around the edges could have a heart of pure gold. She said good manners were such a shallow way of judging a person. I agree.

Good manners are often just a way of showing consideration for other people, and therefore someone who has never been taught manners, can still have excellent manners, even while eating with their mouths open, their elbows on the table, and swearing in 'polite' company. And the person with all the superficial show of good manners may actually have rotten manners.

Swearing to me is probably one of the most superficial ways of judging people. I’ll happily swear. And when I have children I won’t care if they swear either. There won't be any no swearing rules in my house.

My children will have such a great vocabulary that if they choose a swear word over other available adjectives as the best descriptive word, or the funniest word, they can go for it.