Swearing is prevalent in many conversational venues, such as
school hallways, bars, concerts, resorts, and even simply walking down the
street. However, the types venues that swearing seems to be the most prevalent
in (where swear words are used in almost every sentence and throughout the
conversation) are, I would argue, not the older traditional settings many of us
over the age of 30 grew up in. I have
noticed that the day-to-day and face-to-face conversations that I am a part of,
whether that be my workplace (an independent school where openly swearing is not
acceptable by students and definitely not be staff), my wife’s workplace (she’s a nurse at the
local hospital, where swearing could get the employees fired, and is not
tolerated by patients either), stores we frequent (I cannot remember a grocery
person swearing at me ever for any reason, and I am confident that there would be some form of disciplinary
action if they did), services we hire people for, etc., do not condone swearing
as an acceptable communication norm. However, when I look or converse in more
modern and non-regulated areas such as online discussions and comment areas, I
find that they can be wrought with profanity. Though not exclusively so, I do
also find that most of the swearing I hear in any area I am in seems to be done
by teens and young adults (and this seems to diminish as people get older).
Though some of the venues one would find swearing in might have
changed or morphed in some way, the concept of swearing has not. Though the
words have perhaps changed a bit since their inception, swearing has been
around for a very long time. Granted, the history of swear words, and
specifically the F-word, is clouded in historical obscurity. As Geoffrey Hughes (2006) writes in his book An
Encyclopedia of Swearing, much of the data has been “buried, hidden, or
deliberately ignored” (p. 10). However, it is not the purpose of this writing
to research the history of these specific types of words, but instead to look
at why we use them in the contexts that we do.
There are a few obvious reasons one might use swear (curse)
words in modern conversation. Firstly, these words can be used for “shock”
value (thus the concept of the “F-bomb”) – saying something that is usually
seen as taboo by the majority of the populace usually get people’s attention.
As well, swear words are also used as emphasis (“Holy S---!”). As well, as a
colleague of mine recently commented, using these words can actually create a
sense of comfort and ease, since using profanity can have the corollary of
bringing conversations down to a more simplistic or base level (to the level of
everyday people). Finally, these words can be used as exhasperative expletives
(“F---!”) that one might say when pain is felt (for example, the every painful
hammer on the thumb scenario).
However, regardless of why we use them, there is a
grammatical difficulty with the words themselves: many of these words have
either no actual meaning (or unknown meaning) in these contexts or can have
multiple meanings at the same time. For example, if one says “that was F----‘n
awesome”, the F-word becomes an exclamation mark. For arguments sake, let’s say
that in this instance, the exclamatory F-word is defined as meaning “really”, as
in “that was really awesome” – better than a normal awesome. If the F- word actually meant “really” in all
cases, we should be able to take that same word and use it in other sentences
and it would make sense. We could then say “Go really better yourself”. But
this is the exact opposite of the sentence’s meaning “Go F--- yourself”. This
can become quite entertaining if one were to ask what a person who uttered a
curse word meant when they used that word in their sentence. In fact, they
would probably increase their F-word usage from that point on.
Now, most people understand what the words mean in the
context of the sentences themselves and the situation they are used in.
However, with respect to communication itself, there is an issue with swearing
which is this: swear words themselves actually contain no meaning, some
meaning, or even changing meanings depending on what the user actually meant.
If that’s the case (as it is), then these words by themselves are somewhat
useless with respect to actually communicating an idea: they instead
communicate nothing more than the listeners best guess is to their meaning
which is extrapolated from the situation at hand. One could even argue that using
swear words shows that the user does not clearly know what they are trying to
say (they are exasperated); thus, they use a word that allows them to say
nothing – thus getting away with not having to come up with an actual word that
communicates an coherent idea. Perhaps, given time, this same person could have
thought of an actual clearly defined word that better communicates what they were
trying to say, but because of time constraints, they instead swore.
So, who cares? The issue for me is in the lack of clear
communication, something that many argue is “dumbing down” our society. Words
are quite powerful and are used to create our understanding of the world around
us. This starts early in our upbringing: "Babies
first bridge the gap between sounds and meaning as early as nine or ten months
of age” (Elliot, 2001), but obviously continues into adulthood. Thus, unclear
thinking and unclear words can result in an unclear understanding of the world
around us. As George Orwell writes in his essay “Politics and the English Language”, the English language can become
“ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of
our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts” (1946). Thus, it
can be seen as a downward spiral: we use words with no meaning because then we
don’t have to think about the meaning of a certain event, which lowers the
meaning of the event itself.
As society speeds up and our lives get busier, the ability
to quickly communicate in an accurate fashion becomes more and more important.
Many of us have had emails or texts misunderstood because of their innate lack
of being able to clearly communicate ideas; these can cause issues that then
take time to fix or apologize for. We (and youth especially) are being asked to
do more and more, faster and faster, and with other people, even to the point
of having to collaborate with individuals from other cultures and countries. We
need to learn to be clear in our increasingly faster and shorter communications
with each other.
Therefore, in this highly technological and multicultural world
that we live in which is shrinking daily due to our ability to communicate with
anyone, anywhere, at any time , perhaps we should begin looking at swearing as
something to be avoided in most (if not all) communication. If we want to have
others completely understand what we are saying and feeling, perhaps we need to
use words that are easy to understand in the context they are used in. Yes, I
am not naive enough to think that swearing will disappear altogether (it hasn't
yet), and I do believe that there will be years when people will use it for the
reasons mentioned at the beginning of this writing, but I feel that, if we know
the truth about why we use them, then perhaps they can be used more sparingly
and perhaps disappear from our vocabulary quicker than it is now. This, I
believe, will help us to both better understand the world around us as well as
to better interact with those in it.
Eliot, Lise (2001) Early Intelligence: How the Brain and Mind
Develop in the First Five Years of Life
Orwell, George
(1946), "Politics and the English Language.” Https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
Hughes, Geoferry (2006). Encyclopedia
of Swearing: The Social History of Oaths, Profanity, Foul Language, and Ethnic
Slurs in the English-Speaking World.
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