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I’ll be honest – prior to becoming pregnant with my first child, over four years ago, I could swear up a blue streak. It didn’t matter at who – friends, ignorant drivers, the television. I was always of the opinion that the word “f*ck” was able to express any emotion on the spectrum: elation, excitement, anger, disappointment … the list really goes on and on.
However, when I became pregnant with my daughter those many years ago, something in my gut told me that it was extremely classless to walk around uttering words “appropriate only for a beer garden,” as my late grandmother would say. (Maybe my late grandmother took up residence in my gut after she passed, I don’t know.) I began choosing my words very carefully, and in the event that an opportunity presented itself to use colorful language, I substituted the swearing with a ridiculous phrase in its own right – things like “Crap on a crayon,” “Crapbag,” and the like, when phrases like “Sh*tbag ballsucker” used to be more appropriate.
After my daughter was born, I kept the habit up of avoiding poor choices in slang, and aside from select written pieces both here and on other sites I write for, most swear words were no longer part of my vocabulary. It seemed I’d trained myself away from using such language.
A few months after my daughter turned three, we all went out to a nearby diner for dinner on a random, faceless Friday night. A woman, two children I’m assuming were hers, and a female companion were seated at a nearby table. The children were climbing all over the booth like little monkeys, and through it all, the mother’s conversation with her friend never wavered once. She was a rather loud speaker (no judgement there; I am too. I was once told that my volume settings were broken), but after awhile, I kept catching snippets of “c*nt,” “coc*sucker,” and “f*ck.” (Sorry for all of the asterisks, but we have advertisers these days, friends.) I was horrified. Embarrassed. Didn’t know …
… where to look. My hands seemed like a good place to start, hands that were itching to work their way over to my three-year-old’s ears, who didn’t notice anything amiss, as she’d never heard such language in her life. My husband and I exchanged looks, and asked to be moved – quietly – to another table.
However, the woman continued her conversation as if nothing was wrong, and hey. Maybe there wasn’t, I don’t know. Yet while a lot of people might blame the incident on a lack of class, or even education, Forbes has a different outlook, claiming that swearing actually produces personal, beneficial results, especially for women in the workplace. Forbes says:
Swearing is not only the behavior of an alpha dog, it actually reduces physical pain so you can imagine how helpful it is to people suffering the emotional pain of disrespect and indignity in the workplace.
Well hell. If a money magazine says it’s OK to swear like a toilet in the workplace, it must be right, right? An interesting point to say the least. Forbes based their study on information released by Psychology Today, which claims that swearing is an “alpha dog” mechanism that is an essential key to success in the business world. In retrospect, when I worked as a high-powered businesswoman in the finance world, the f-bomb was dropped in the office more than “Good Morning” was uttered, and it was acceptable. We were classy (well, some of us were; others were Wall Street douchebags), educated, and drank martinis on the weekends. We weren’t any barefoot, pregnant harpies saying “sh*t” and “pi*s” at grocery store cashiers because our coupons couldn’t be doubled or anything, you know.
Forbes goes on to say that “claiming the right to swear is claiming power,” and that “swearing is persuasive.” But I’ll be honest – I respond a heck of a lot better to someone who’s able to keep their cool than to fly off the handle screaming “motherfu*ker” as they try to illustrate their point, either business- or personal-related.
Our friend Jezebel, however, takes a different type of standpoint. Jez claims that it might be unnecessary for men and women to swear, period. Professor Emrys Westacott, author of Why We Curse: A Neuro-Psycho-Social Theory of Speech, interviewed by Jezebel says:
“I’d say usually cursing is simply uncivil and to be avoided. There may be exceptions, though, where you think a person needs to have impressed on them the seriousness of their offence, or the intensity of your feelings about something they’ve done. In other words, there may be times when it is the only way to make an impression on someone — to get through to them.”
So … it’s appropriate sometimes, but not others? It’s appropriate when relating to someone who knows no other option of negotiation or conflict resolution than yelling and swearing and generally trying to intimidate?
In closing, Forbes claims that swearing gives “emotional punch” to our speech, but I ask, “Who wants to be known as the hothead who may or may not be a stable person?” Forbes says:
Particularly when second-class citizens, like women, swear, they communicate a passionate intensity more likely to wake up an audience and lead them to action than would a dry recitation of mind-numbing statistics.
Interesting, Forbes
But why the double standard for women as well as men? Why is a man who works a factory assembly job for a smidge above minimum wage judged for using the f-word liberally, when a man who’s an executive at a brokerage firm can throw the word around in front of prospective clients? Why is it OK that a woman can use the f-word in a marketing meeting to illustrate her point (though, careful, it might make her seem unstable), urging both men and women to cower in their chairs in intimidation, but a woman who’s out with her friends at the pub is looked at like a piece of trash if she so much as says “balls”?
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A curse has meaning in intent, not content. ‘fuck’ is as much a nonsense word as ‘crapbag’, and they serve the exact same purpose. Using one or the other shows a similar lack of restraint, for better or worse. I don’t understand why people imbue a couple of nonsense words with such power, as though one scatological term was different from another.
If you don’t want to swear, don’t swear. Using other words to swear changes little.
Sure but I know *I’d* rather someone call me a “crapbag” than a “motherfucker” any day and that’s because society *has* placed such importance on the content of the curse. If I called someone a crapbag at a bar fight, they’d laugh me out the door. If I called someone a motherfucker at a bar fight, I’d probably have my face pounded. I get what you’re saying, that both are just as nonsensical as the other, but we don’t live in an ideal world and content is what it’s all about.
Personally I think the ‘cursing/not cursing’ debate is just another way to judge other people. It’s just like saying that every woman who wears revealing clothes is a slut. Or like saying that every woman who is covered from head to toe is an angel. Granted… You probably won’t have a job for very long if you wear revealing clothes to work if you are working in an office setting. However, if you are working as a go-go dancer…
Words are words. They only have as much power as you give them. Obviously I’m going to avoid cursing in front of children and cursing at my boss, but in every other situation, I don’t care. However, I don’t usually curse AT people (as in calling them a motherfucker). I curse when talking about my feelings about something, so in THAT case, I think is where the Psychology Today study has a point- it’s in venting your emotions (perhaps to a good friend) that cursing probably ‘reduces emotional pain.’ So I tend to think that it doesn’t really have anything to do with being a ’stable’ or ‘unstable’ person… However, I could see your point if said person in the workplace was cursing others out- that would be verbal/emotional abuse. But you can be verbally and emotionally abusive WITHOUT cursing as well… So again… I don’t see a whole lot of merit in judging people who use curse words to articulate their emotions.
Well said!
Personally, I think that fuck is a lovely word.
Sometimes, no other word will do.
Are we to take from “prior to becoming pregnant with my first child, over four years ago…”, that you are pregnant?
Not that I am nosy *biznitch or anything :)
And where have you been, Missy? Good to see you!
*bitch
I am pregnant, actually. :D Just about eighteen weeks along, just found out we’re having a boy. So excited!
I’ve been around … busy as hell, but around. xoxo
Congratulations! Babies are amazing!
I am so happy for you and your family :)
xoxo
Yeah, we can’t wait … His name is going to be Jack! (Well, Jackson, but I’ve been bent on having a little boy called Jack ever since I decided I wanted to be a mama.) :) I’m due February 23rd, so there’s a little while to go yet, haha.
Every member of my family swears like sailors (probably cause so many people in my family have been sailors/ been raised by sailors) and it’s something we all do when just hanging out with each other and my mom saw no reason to pretend hearing swears in the household as a child would damage my soul. However I never swore at school, and I never swear at work, there is a time and place for relaxed conversation and a time for professionalism as well.
Good point and well written! I actually don`t swear at all.
But the occasional “fuck” is a must!
xoxo, Dave :)
What your listener thinks, feels and does as a reaction to you, that is the real meaning of what you said.
Ignore this at your own peril. It is to refuse responsibility as a communicator, and to embrace incompetence as an ideal.