Communication

What's With All the Swearing

by Andrew Tuttle
02/17/21
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WTF?

Is it just me or is there a propensity for swearing nowadays?

Calling it an epidemic would be @#$%&! ridiculous but seriously it seems as if dropping the F-bomb, using the present tense of shat and mixing in a whole host of other well-known adjectives, verbs and nouns normally not used in the presence of mixed company now represents the everyday norm.

No, no, no. I know what your thinking. Look around at my other Faithwriter submissions and you can see Christianity runs through my veins. So perhaps it’s because I’m overly sensitive or easily offended. Well, I can tell you that’s not the case.

Nor do I stand in judgment.

As I tend to swear a bit too much myself.

Stuck in traffic? I let the obscenities fly. Especially if I’m late and really especially if I’m late to somewhere I really want to be. I hate @#$%&! traffic. With a passion. I also don’t like dog owners who let their dogs run around off the leash who then shrug their shoulders when their loose dog accosts my dog. I let a dog owner have it once for such an incident. Bad words included.

So with all that being said, swearing, I swear, now constitutes normal everyday language. Remember when swearing got you landed in the principal's office? Today, I co-exist around more swearing people than I ever did as a teenager. Even the most accomplished professionals seem to simply accept foul language.

I once attended a internet marketing conference flooded by professionals and people with brilliant minds. At this event, I had lunch with a person (no names here!) who, if the conference had celebrity-ranked their speakers, would have been #2 on the popularity list. I couldn’t believe the language that spewed from his mouth. Sure, he was amusing, colorful, and he dominated the conversation - no doubt everyone around him wanted to flood all their attention on him. But, even other side conversations I engaged in were littered with profanity.

Heck, in my everyday job, swearing is almost a prerequisite.

I have yet to attend a meeting or even engage in a lengthy conversation without the R-rated version of fudge, crap, rear-end, gosh darnit and jiminy cricket, among others. The first time I swore in a private conversation with my then-boss, describing a difficult situation at home, his mouth dropped and he said, “You just swore!”

Can you believe that? People notice when you don’t swear instead of people noticing when you do swear.

Another time during a casual conversation, my neighbor said the foul version of “Oh crap” when I explained a health situation I was having with my dog. It was simply normal conversational language. She’s 50! Well, I’ve overheard young teenagers use the word like it was taught in class and we all strive to be young don’t we?

I have worked in a newsroom and a corporate setting where rarely did swear words get thrown around and never in a meeting. It just wasn’t done. If colorful words were dropped, it certainly raised eyebrows because anger usually was the backdrop. Regardless, it wasn’t professional. It also comes across a bit uneducated.

Today, swearing rolls off the tongue no different than describing the tree across the street as green. Check that. That tree across the street is @#$%&! green!

I took a fiction writing class many years ago and the professor told me that the F word used to be a great word. It was powerful, it caught your attention and spoke volumes. He said it was now used so often in books and movies the F word was diluted to the point it held little to no value anymore.

That was the year 2000.

He’s right. Today, swearing sounds more like white noise to me. I am not sure I even hear it anymore and for me to notice someone really has to be on a tangent.

Remember the 10 Commandments? "Though shalt not swear" didn't make the cut but how many adhere to the commands that did?

Maybe I’m just 1980s old-fashioned. Perhaps culture changed. I was once unemployed (well, twice actually) and out of the market place for three years. Maybe I’m just behind the times. Hey, get with the @#$%&! program!

I used to get looks of disbelief after confessing I didn’t have a cell phone (I have one now). Crinkled brow in tow, this revelation was usually met with “Wait, you don’t have a cell phone?”

No.

You swear though right?

I kid. They didn't actually ask if I swear. But I do wonder if this advent of swearing started the slow boil towards where humanity exists today.