Swearing

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I didn't swear at all until probably college. People always used to try to get me to say cursewords. I'm not sure why I didn't curse- it may have been related to my rigid following of rules.

Now I curse sometimes (with age I've learned which rules are okay to relax, for instance I now drive slightly above the speed limit at times), but usually not unless I'm really upset.

I find heavy cursing not offensive, but just stupid-sounding, like the person is trying to prove something. People who curse a lot to me always sound awkward and ill-at-ease. I don't have any problems with rules prohibiting cursing.

If I am really upset about something, the first thing that comes out of my mouth is f*** or s***. So yeah I definitely swear.. and it doesn't take a lot for me to be upset, so that would mean I do indeed swear quite a bit.

I think that not all swearing is the same.

To write something down which contains a "dirty word" is a more serious matter than to utter a few choice and colourful words when you

1. Crash a car
2. Hit your foot on a table leg
3. Have some sudden and very intense pain at the dentist. Once when I has having some roots done the dentist poked a thing into a tooth. The nerve was still alive and not numbed. I then yelled a series of dirty words. But minutes later when I was paying the bill I was back to my normal swearfree self.

I think most aspies, auties and NT people will forgive instantly any of the three examples above.

The written word is very lasting, it might seem funny at the time to file a report on a maintance form that your coworker has a defective hair cut and that he needs the repair team to fix it. But a short while later the joke will not be nearly as funny. The comment will then look like some twit has been filling the maintance book out with nonsense. In the same way it might be funny for me to say something rude here, but minutes, hours or days later the rude remark will be less funny and it may become my badge of shame.

I would also say that swearwords are not good replacements for other words, if we remove all the adjatives we normally use and replace them with @£#%ing then the english will become less clear. Always bear in mind that some of our readers do not read english as a first langauge. Even for a native english speaker text which is littered with crude swear words where normal words should be used is less clear than "normal english".

Let us have an example

When I was out walking I saw a small green frog sitting on the road on a crossing, I reached down to move the frog to safety but as I reached down the lights changed . I quickly stepped off the crossing and waited, a big fast van went zooming past and I stepped back onto the crossing expecting to see a dead frog. Instead the frog was still alive. I picked up the silly frog and I took it to a nearby bush.

Now the sweary version

When I was out walking I saw a small #%&# frog sitting on the road on a crossing, I reached down to move the frog to safety but as I reached down the lights changed . I quickly stepped off the crossing and waited, a @*% &#¤* van went zooming past and I stepped back onto the crossing expecting to see a &¤#* frog. Instead the frog was still alive. I picked up the *%&# frog and I took it to a nearby bush.

I think that the first version tells the reader much more. Also to yell #%&* &#@$¤#% for the simple joy of swearing is clearly wrong. I say that WP should (where ever possible) stay "swear free". I do not want to find the place drowning in dirty words.

i agree with this. i said i do not swear, but when i thought about it, i realise i do if i hurt myself or get cranky with other cars.

i more often string normal derogatory words together to address the object i was injured by. sometimes i pepper those sentences with swear words. eg: "you dirty filthy stinking rotten putrid bastard of a thing!!"

or if i am in my car and someone is an agonisingly slow and stupid person who is hindering me (say in exiting a car park) i may say tjings like "come on come on you palsied blasted ape!!.......oh for christs sake you stupid f*cking gibbon move it!! !"

but in normal calm dialogue, i never use swear words because they do not occur to me to use.

i never say the word c*nt because it is quite uncouth , and i always think poorly of someone who uses it with little reason.

the only time i may use that word is in an extreme situation. eg: if someone killed my possums and poisoned my kookaburras, then if i found him, i would may use the word coldly to address him before i acted further.

even then, i would not think i would use it really.

i am amused to hear the conversations between some people at the tavern where i eat.

there was one instance where a man was blaming his girlfriend for not winning money on a horse race.

he said "i told ya ta f*ckin get my f*ckin bloody pen outa my f*ckin bag ten f*ckin minutes ago ya f*ckin sl*t!! !" and i burst into laughter. thankfully i was at a different table and he did not realize i was laughing at him.

another time i heard some tired minded semi drunk person trying to say what he did for a job to another person he met.

he said "well i f*ckin get the ....ahhh... the f*ckin....errr.. the f*ckin oil drums hey...and i f*ckin err ...i bloody ahhh... yeah i f*ckin ummmm forklift the c*nts to the f*ckin depot hey...

it was so funny i had to take my plate to a table where i could not hear him.

there a very few swear words (10?) in the language of tens of thousands of words, yet they comprised 80% of his speech.

Last edited by b9 on 06 Jan 2009, 8:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

I prefer to save swear words for situations in which "Oh dear" simply will not do. If they're over-used, they lose their impact.

I say "f**k" in my head constantly; my inner world is quite hateful.

I refrain from such when conversing as I know it makes some people uncomfortable (there's that adaptive behaviour coming in).

I remember that documentary, "Make Me Normal", most of the young individuals [with Asperger's] cursed to some extent in the presence of the camera. It was made clearly by the headmaster that these children were oftentimes angry due to their inability to understand and comprehend the world around them--I can certainly identify with that (mine is more hate, however).

In general conversation I do not swear. If others want to swear it doesnt offend me, unless it starts to get excessive and unecessary.

As said above, if I hurt myself, bump the car or something makes me jump then I have been known to use both F**K and S**T. I am a bit clumsy so can hurt myself often at times, on these occasions I say it quietly to myself

I read somewhere (a long time ago) "Swearing focuses a person's attention on my words, not my thoughts", and it made so much sense to me that I rarely swear. Of course, in some situation, it just can't be helped...as another member posted, "Oh dear" just doesn't cut it.

I think that the context of the swearing is what offends people. If I'm having dinner out and the people are the next table are using F**K as every other word, I'm offended. If there is some sort of emergency, i.e. someone just crashed into your parked car, and you use the word, I'd have no problem with it.

LL

I certainly swear if I feel there's a need for it, but it still annoys me to listen to people who can't even make it through a sentence without a four-letter word. That's just poor use of language.

I also don't like to hear people swearing in front of young children, or in front of elderly people, who may also be offended.

I do swear quite a bit to be honest.

Like I said earlier, I think it's stupid that we have swear words. I don't understand how society can make a word bad when it's people that are good and bad and not dead objects like words.

I notice I swear when I'm playing a game (Zuma) and keep missing something (like accidentally misfire the ball) or if I'm about to die and desperately try to stay alive. I usually say the SH word which even gets me going more on the ignorance behind the idea of words being bad because we also have levels of badness these words have. SH word is less bad than the F word. It's just stupid, and I don't know if it's part of neurotypical behavior or just people all around, but it makes absolutely no sense to me.

But

When I hurt myself, I start to swear but I don't and then I do if it still hurts after a second or if someone asks me what happened. Like I'll say, Son of a, Piece of, Ooohh. Then my husband will say, What happened? and I'll be like, I just hit my f-ing leg on that piece of sh.. table, and then I kick the table or throw the thing that hurt me or kick it depending on what it is (hard to throw a wall).

And

I think you should swear when you are about to get into a fight as it's part of the neurotypical human behavior when in animal instinct (like a cat's growl and hiss). It also gets you pumped up, and you are going to lose a fight if you are thinking (unless you are Jet Li) about afternoon tea etiquette. Also if you are afraid you are going to lose, you will probably lose. You just have to be like a dog with a bone about hurting someone in that kind of situation in order to walk away from it in the end, and cussing usually intimidates for whatever reason (doesn't work so hot on me) because my ranting and cussing has avoided many fights. I always said that I have awesome anger management. My anger manages other people's anger. After the fight, you have to say something smart to the person you just beat up as you are getting that last kick in, and that often includes a cuss word or two...like "I told you you didn't want none of this stupid b-word." But it has to be short cause you don't want to stick around long after something like that, even if it were in self defense. Plus, when adrenaline is pumping like that, it's hard to really want to say anything. I'm not trying to act like I'm all tough and get into fights frequently or anything, but I've been to some rough bars in my time.

I also swear a lot when I'm quoting rap music.

I do swear outside those reasons, but these reasons I think should be acceptable times to swear if the words are indeed bad words, like they are going to hell when they die because they are so bad. I hope that wasn't a swear word because I can't think of a cleaner word for hell. The d-word also should mean going to hell, but that's a swear word too? Ministers say those words.

See why this is completely stupid?

FYI, I can call a person stupid and the word isn't bad as much as me. I'm the one who makes my words bad or good in the way I use them. But if I were in conversation with another chic explaining the difference between making love and a cold hard f-word, I'm cussing and that makes me bad. I'm so curious as to the logic behind this because I see none. Yes, I've been asking this question to churches, parents, teachers, principals, and random people and still have no idea why it is this way. I'm starting to think there is no reason except that people are like sheep as the Bible often refers to them as they are the type to do whatever all the other sheep are doing, even if there is no shepherd around to lead.

Obviously! Blindly replacing meaningful words with anything else will cause you to lose meaning.

Here's the "like" version:

"When I was out walking I saw a small, like, frog sitting on the road on a crossing, I reached down to move the frog to safety but as I reached down the lights changed . I quickly stepped off the crossing and waited, a, like, van went zooming past and I stepped back onto the crossing expecting to see a, like, frog. Instead the frog was still alive. I picked up the, like, frog and I took it to a nearby bush."

And here's a version that replaces all the adjectives with "butt":

"When I was out walking I saw a butt butt frog sitting on the road on a crossing, I reached down to move the frog to safety but as I reached down the lights changed . I quickly stepped off the crossing and waited, a butt van went zooming past and I stepped back onto the crossing expecting to see a butt frog. Instead the frog was still alive. I picked up the butt frog and I took it to a nearby bush."

Clearly, it doesn't matter what kind of word you use. Swear words have their own meaning and should be use appropriately, just like any other. And I don't mean that pedantically - I mean you know what they mean and wouldn't confuse them with random adjectives any more than you would confuse "green" and "butt".



Don't you ever feel that being told not to do something makes you want to do it? And doesn't the knowledge that it can't actually cause any harm make you wonder why you're being told not to? And doesn't that ever tempt you to do it even more? If not, I will assume you are a robot.

But seriously, "dirty words" just makes me laugh. Why are people so afraid of something that they can't talk about it in normal language, but perfectly willing to accept it if you use a different word? I believe this stems in no way from the sound or meaning of the words but from tensions between social classes, since these are words that tend to arise among the lower class. Which is not to say that only the higher classes feel this way. Morals spread faster than reason.

I don't know if you read my posts, but you are the first person to ever say something as to why certain words are dirty. If there is truth to the social class tension, then I think thats all the reason more to say those words...you know like sticking it to the man type thing. It's a good theory like...

Once upon a time, the poor used words. The rich wanted to feed their ego since their bellies were already full, so they mocked the poor for their language. The poor always admired the beautiful rich people and their full bellies, so in trying to be like them, they avoid their own language. Before you know it, the only one using that language is the people who just don't give a flying....