Plinky.com asked me, when it comes to swear words, am I pro or con?
Firstly, I'll confess to being a Brit from just outside North London, UK who had a working/middle class upbringing.
Then I'll confess that, depending on my mood, swearing will often enter my language stream like punctuation. It's a natural part of my language set and I'll swear when it makes sense.
As a writer, I also have to be ready to swear my head off if the character demands I write them that way.
So, am I pro or con swearing – it feels like a kind of juvenile question to answer, unimportant in these times – but I am pro, provided it's not used hurtfully; to demean another person.
Living in the US now, I see the use of 'freakin' (or 'frikkin') to replace 'fucking' and somehow it's OK. Similarly 'sugar' for shit, 'darn' for damn… though I haven't heard a replacement for cunt.
[and that's interesting, because I wonder whether this will get posted now I've typed the c-word :o)]And, btw, I am sick of grown adults in the workplace, rolling their eyes, sniggering behind their hands and whispering "Jimmy just dropped the f-bomb" like they're still in middle school.
Grow up.
To my eyes and ears, the view of certain words being bad is all a hangover from blasphemy as defined in religious texts. As an atheist, I'm always concerned at how religious precepts define and underpin social policy – not because religious viewpoints are necessarily bad, but because they are applied within dogma, unwilling to accept difference.
Like the difference of swearing if you feel like it.
I really have only one thing to say to such dogma: fuck that.
