...and don't panic! The Know brings you advice during housing
A true friend is always there for you, especially when you're drunk.
Miss Quit regresses to her childhood this week as the prospect of beginning the "University of Life" looms.
Remember those days of innocence, when a swear word was something to giggle over, something a bit naughty, something you’d say to look cool? Sure you do, we all do. Yet it’s a lot harder to remember when and how that all faded away into a more jaded, commonplace form of expression. Even harder is trying to do away with it once this occurs.
But then, who would want to?
When I told my housemates that I was attempting to give up swearing for a week, I practically got laughed out of the room. Apparently, I never swear much anyway. God knows where the eff they got that impression. They all seemed to give me a look that said “Aw, bless her socks, she thinks she’s obscene”.
Perhaps they had a point. I never had a swearing role-model, and I’m usually too afraid of offending someone to just slip it into everyday conversation. All that is thrown out of the window when I’m behind the wheel of course, when, according to my friend Rachel, I tend to “favour hand gestures over words”, and then I can be “truly unnerving”. Well, that’s what driving in York will do to you.
Ok, so whilst I’m not the most prolific of cursers, I do like a good four-letter word every now and again. I particularly relish the reaction that comes about when I do drop a cuss. People, for some apparent reason, do not expect such words to come from my mouth. And it shows.
It must be the fact that I look about 12 and occasionally buy clothes from GAP kids (don’t judge me, they are cheaper and fit me well). In fact it's just like the reaction that occurs between a group of adults when a child swears: they all laugh it off, somewhat embarrassed for the child who in turn is completely unsure as to why exactly they received such a response.
Perhaps my friends are right. Perhaps because the swear word is unexpected, it's that much more powerful.
Sometimes you just cannot beat a big fat *%&@!!!! When no other word will cut it, there is the swear word. There is, after all, a perfect curse for every imaginable emotion, action, exclamation, and bodily function known to man. It can be a fail-safe, an enhancer of meaning, a comic tool in everyday conversation. Plus, it can be great fun.
At least that is how most people use those special words. There will always be the sad few who take a perfectly normal word and turn it into a derogatory one by way of using it as one would an imprecation. This is the darker side of the swear word.
A profound difference exists between a casual profanity and this kind of cursing. Swearing itself is not offensive, no more than whistling or laughing or any other form of human expression. ‘Bad words’ are just words made bad by the exact same society that created them. We need expletives, this is evident from the mere fact that they exist at all. So long as they are not used to promote hate, or to persecute, then there is no real danger in them.
In light of this, therefore, I don’t think abstaining from swearing is a realistic, nor a healthy decision. Think about it, as time elapses swear words lose their effect. Once, the dreaded C-word was the pinnacle of offence. Now you can’t go one day without hearing it in some kind of context. So the word’s meaning is diluted, and becomes less powerful. This, inevitably, will lead newer, more offensive, potentially racist and malicious words to enter linguistic acceptability.
It is this use of swearing, not swearing itself, which is dangerous, offensive and repulsive.
By sparser use of the ‘harsher’ four-letter wonders, we may actually avert such derogatory and truly disgusting language from infiltrating our vocabularies. No matter how harmless the intention may be, if this is what will prevent such detestable abuse of the swear word, then I for one am willing to use it even less.
Free speech is one thing, but sometimes, we should all just shut the *@$% up.
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