I grew up in an environment where “pissed” would always be a cuss word, “hell” would be if uttered in a way not actually talking about the (mythical) location, and “damn” would pretty much also always be considered a cuss word (except possibly when saying something like “he’ll be damned to hell”, though “condemned” would always be acceptable). “Sucks” and “screwed” would almost attain the same status for some people, such as my paternal grandmother.

On a forum I go to, I mentioned that a particular video game has only one instance of a cuss word (”damn”), when the series has historically not had any and been kid-friendly, and that I thought it was put in there not for good reason, but simply to make it appear to be for more mature audiences (and for shock value). Someone came back at me by being shocked that I consider “damn” a bad word. Well, around where I live, it is. But as a USian (Canadians and Mexicans are American, too, after all), I don’t see any problem with “bloody”… a word that the British apparently regard as a “bad word”.

Perhaps a good indicator of what is or isn’t a “bad word” would be to go see what isn’t allowed to be said in elementary schools (not including words like “sex”, which adults don’t want children to know about for other reasons entirely).

Words are just sounds used to communicate. None are bad or good intrinsically, but only appropriate and inappropriate in context (social and otherwise). I have no problem using these words, but I always tend to use what is acceptable in whatever social context I’m in. I’m not going to use any variant of the word “fuck” around my grandmother, for instance, or around my nine-year-old sister.

“I consider my righteousness skubalon, which means, basically, shit. Phil. 3:8

fucking point of fucking using the fucking fuck word for fucks sake?

Fuck! You missed a fucking apostrophe.

If a word can be said to have power that is.

Whatever. The problem with this logic is that, if you stop swearing, you limit your vocabulary. Not the other way around. If I say, “I’m not going to say ‘fuck’,” then I’ve just limited my vocabulary by one word.

You might say that there are plenty of words that are appropriate to the situation – yeah. Swear words are the appropriate words for when you are angry, when you want to emphasize something, when you want to…

There is no reason whatsoever to limit your vocabulary and remove swearwords from your daily usage. What word is better than, “Aw, shit,” when something goes wrong? How could you possibly suggest that there is another word that fits the category “exclamation for bad events”?

Your car is broken: “Zounds!”

Honestly.

That said the occassional use of expletives for emphasis is a magnificent use of language. My chief objection is the ubiquity of certain words when there are viable and more descriptive words available.

I think bad language is exactly that…bad language. There are enough words in any language to effectively communicate.

Especially as a parent of children who are beginning to repeat most words/phrases they hear – I won’t condemn people for using them, but I will greatly appreciate and support those who don’t.