Some people are offended by certain words because they find them personally insulting. Others are just being self righteous. Still others are just going along with the herd. I only dislike words spoken out of hatred, so i find certain racial slurs to be offensive. As for the F word, I say, sticks and stones..... There are probably hundreds of reasons people consider swearing wrong, but I think the common underlying element is fear.
"curse words" well... there are words that are just crude - vulgarisms... & if used in, let us say, "inappropriate" situations, are a sure indication of crudity, declasse, nikultyurny, tackiness... and then there are word that are offensive to people because of "the slur" - cultural slams against a percieved "other" - (see: "politically correct" hehheh) but the "religious" objection to "cursing" --> well, in our culture, some of it is associated with the mosaic rules of conduct - from the ten commandments to laws about speech, and jewish customs pertaining to uttering aloud the name of the lord... so "cussin'" could involve saying aloud a sacred name in an inappropriate context... when invoking "the name of the lord" in anger, one could be considered to be "taking the lord's name in vain"... (compare shouting out "jesus" when in a gospel church praise session, vs. shouting out "jesus" when you smack your thumb with a hammer, hehheh...) when literally cursing (as in the phrase "god damn it", or even the phrase "go to hell") - you are calling upon the name of the most high (or at least implying it, hehheh) &, now that you've got god's attention, asking him to condemn to the hellfire of eternal damnation the particular object of your momentary dissatisfaction or anger... ~ hmmm, that was about $.02 worth, ehhh?
"Swear Words" are words that have been marked by society as "taboo". The damage, however, is not in the words themselves, but the energy underlying the use of them...an energy that can actually be quite harmful.
My hubby, who is a conservative evangelical Christian believes swearing is a sin. (He bases this on biblical teachings about what comes out of your mouth is what makles you unclean.) He gets SO mad if anything of that nature slips out of me. so I try not to do that. He, on the other hand, does not get it when I call him on having a "swearing attitude" (you know what I mean, same feelings, different nonsensical words being blathered.) But he says that doesn't count. Apparently it's not your attitude that matters but the phonemes your palate forms.
I had an English professor tell me that those words were actually native words of the Britons and the Celts. The words mean virtually the same thing now as they did back then, in as far as their literal meaning, but the connotation is totally off right now. The majority of our "curse" words were outlawed by the Roman invasion because they wanted to Christianize Europe. A lot of people are skeptical of that, but when you take into account that the adoption of Christianity by the Celts and native people of Northern Europe was more than likely not as smooth of a transition as the history books tell, then it makes a lot of sense that such terrible laws were passed against any remnants of the old culture. Machievelian Ethics in it's earliest developement almost. Besides, the history book writers were Roman or educated by Romans, and most of the original Celtic Ogham writing has been destroyed either by invaders or the passing of time. With that being said, it's to no avail that we still carry on this old custom... the words are taboo because people were restricted from using them to talk about their religion, and to do so meant bad things would happen. The word "fuck" meant the same thing, to fertilize (think on a primitive agrarian level where the earth is seen as the greatest thing ever, in all her glory and harshness- at the same time), but "fuck" meant to not only make love, but to plant, to make new life come from things we considered phenomenal. The word "damn" meant pretty much the same thing it does now too... to curse something to a degree. The word "bitch" was anything that was pregnant, and it was considered the most beautiful state of a woman's life, but the Romans enjoyed the hell out of corrupting that word into just a pregnant dog. "Hell" is actually an extremely corrupted word that was actually spelled "Hel" and it was the name of the Celtic god of the Otherworld. To go to Hel, meant that you died and you would receive what you needed to come back and live again... the Celts had an ongoing process of forging a soul, much like a sword or anything else like that, so they would receive the knowledge necessary for the next stage of forging. "Shit" was the name they used for semen, which was the fertilizer, but that was also used to describe the same thing we do today. It wasn't like they worshiped that shit, it was just that they saw spirituality in farming and birth. As for "ass"- I have no idea or I simply forgot if that was one or not. Anyways, that's what Dr. Hopegill told me, and I'm outta here!
Words are only as powerful as there meaning. You can use a lot of non-curse words that carry just as much hate. Intention is everything....
I don't want to be a spoil sort, but most of what lostbalck said was completely innaccurate. Lostblackdog attributes many of todays english language 'curse' or 'swear' words to Christian era Roman empire Christianization of Europe and primarily of Briton and Celtic peoples. It is preposterous to argue that five swear words have come down from an ancient celtic language unchanged in pronounciation and meaning while the entire rest of the language has been lost. Yet Lostblackdog does just that in his explanation of "fuck", "bitch", "shit", "hell", and "damn". All of these are currently almost exclusively english language words though there derevations may not be from exclusively from English (there are some minor exceptions). Let us begin with "fuck". While there are numerous explanation for the origin of the f-word I will only go the of two most probable. One is that it derives from either or a combination of the German "ficken", the Middle English "fucken", or the Middle Dutch "fokken" all of which mean to strike, penetrate, or move quickly, and in the case of the Dutch, to copulate with. Keep in mind that all of these words came along well after the fall of the Roman empire. The other is that the word derives from "fecund" a middle English word still in use today meaning fertile, or capable of producing offspring. While this comes somewhat close to Lostblackdog's explantion we must keep in mind the "fecund" itself derives not from any lost Celtic language but from the Latin "fecundus". While the Romans did indeed speak latin (duh) it is Celtic words that Lostblackdog claims as origintors. It is improbabl that the Romans would have changed the meaning of their own words just to stick it to the Britons. Now "bitch". The oldest written records of the word that would become today's modern English "Bitch" date to roughly 1,000 c.e. well after the fall of the Roman empire. While these sources are Old English they use the term in a technical sense meaning a female dog or femal animals in general. The word has never been used to signify something that was in a state of pregnancy. There is strong though not definitive evidence to indicate that the word in Old English in fact is derived from Norse or Teutonic languages. In no case is the word used in any kind of vulgar or offensive way. The fist use of the word "bitch" to referr to women occurs in texts dating from near the year 1400 and is not used in the modern sense. Instead the 15th century use of the word is to label a woman as "lewde". There is no indication the the modern vulgar use of the word dates any earlier than the 19th century. Now time for "shit". Shit has a double derivation from the Indo-European "skei" which means to separate or divide, and the Middle English scitan which, appropriately, means "to defecate". That was some short shit, now time for "Hell" Well Hel was the Norse goddess of Neifelheim, sometimes called Helheim. Hel was Loki's daughter and was a very unplesant character according to Norse traditions. Neifelheim was not exactly a place for the damned but neither was it some place of reincarnation as Lostblackdog suggests. Norse religion had no element of reincarnation whatsoever. Neifelheim was where people who died of sickness, accident, or old age went. It was cold, damp and boring. Later the word "Hel" was indeed Christianized into "Hell" but this did not occur untill well after the 11th century, more than 500 years after the fall of the Western Roman empire. Additionally, Hel was a Norse figure and would have been completely unheard of outside of Demark, the Scandanaviam peninsula, and the eastern Baltic, Rome never conquered these regions and was, at best, only vaguely aware of their existence. Now "damn. Well "damn has always meant the what it means today, here is its origin. It is from Middle English dampnen which derives from Old French dampner which derives from the Latin damnare. All of these mean basically the same thing. Ass an added bouns I'll do "ass". The modern English "ass" meaning "butt" derives from the Middle English arse (still in use) meaning the same thing. "Ass" used as a noun to mean "moron" "ignoramus" or "stupid person" and the like derives from the modern English word "ass" used as a noun to mean a donkey. I'm done, time for bed.
Swearing is inaccurate language. Like accessive slang, repetitive catch phrases or an untranslated quote in an unshared language, swearing tends to obscure the meaning of what you are trying to communicate to others. I am no prude, I can't remember the last time I was offended by swearing. I have a dick, I am quite fond of pussy, and tits, I know what it means to fuck, to shit, to piss. And although I think these things are best enjoyed privately, they are good things, and there are good words to describe them. But just as you would never use your dick to open a bottle of beer (it's messy and makes the beer taste funny), you wouldn't use a word like . . . fucking, as an adjective to describe your latest idea (it's messy and makes the idea taste funny). People who swear a lot tend to stop thinking about what their words actually mean. When you use meaningless or inappropriate words, anyone to whom you speak has to filter them out of whatever it is you want them to understand. You are unconsciously telling them that they don't have to listen to everything you are saying. Eventually they really do stop listening to everything you are saying. More importantly, it is a fact of humanity that most of our thoughts tend to be collected, stored and expressed in the form of words. When you allow yourself to become unconscious of your words, you also become unconscious of your thoughts. This is what it means to be stupid. What is even worse, maybe even dangerously worse, when you get into the habit of using words that do not correspond with your thoughts you cease to communicate clearly with those around you, with the world around you, with reality. This is what it means to be insane. Swearing doesn't necessarily lead to habitual stupidity or madness, but if you say to me something like "Shit!!! I got a fucking song stuck in my fucking head" I will wonder what I am expected to do about it. Should I respond in some way? or, Should I just wait until you have returned from wherever it is that your mind has gone? Should I actually try to shit or maybe throw some cold water on your fucking head? Are you even talking to me? See you!
its not the words you use but there intent that holds any real value in comunication and since so many curse words are just that, used to curse, they have strongly negative conotations,, know what i mean?
Swearing is a sign of a weak mind. You can't even control yourself. You have allowed yourself to become emotional.
