I Swear, I’ll Do Better: But This Advice Just Sucks Stinks

August 17, 2008 / 11:21 pm • By Dr. Melissa Clouthier

I swear too much. Well, not too much, because I think about sex, I mean swearing, but I stop myself because I have little children around. Not to mention, swearing all the time makes a person sound ignorant and while I might be ignorant, I don’t like broadcasting it immediately with an “f” bomb. Well, and there’s something else….. I live in the Bible belt. Saying the word hell gets painful grimaces from church-going girlfriends. My life in a Blue state polluted me and now, I live in Texas and I’m a recovering swear-bucket. Sigh. Some days are better than others.

Well. James Lileks chastens me:

There’s a great power in knowing the bad words, but not using them. And yes, suck is a bad word. Not in the king-hell effenheimer sense, but it’s just vulgar. Yes, I use it, now and then; it escapes my lips like an untended belch. But I am an adult, and that means I also get cigars and scotch and “Omen” movies where people get impaled by Satanically-influenced garden fences. Using cheap words all the time just devalues everything that dribbles out of your cuss-hole; reserving a potent epithet for the right moment, then unleashing it like a hellfire missile has a notable effect. Unless you’re Data in “Star Trek Generations” observing that the Enterprise is about to tumble into the atmosphere; over ten years of careful study has shown that was just a gimmick. Hearing someone swear on Star Trek was novel enough, like Marcel Marceau burping, but it should have been Miles O’Brien.

There are two extremes. I find the person who cusses every other word with no coherent thought to be dull. I find the person who wouldn’t say shit if it was sitting in a pile on her desert plate annoying. Maybe it’s my rebellious nature, but it is fun seeing a church lady get goosed at the sound of a bad word. Please.

Still, too much swearing does demonstrate a lack of imagination. So, I’ve tried to cut back. Would it be better to not swear at all? I think my mom might be happier, but I kinda like using “adult” words. I was going to say, well you can guess, but I won’t.

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  • Trish

    The problem with using “adult” words, or at least with the current overuse of them, is that not that it devalues the other things you say, but that it devalues the power of the words themselves. And frankly, if a pile of shit were sitting on someone’s plate I’d have more respect if they said, “Oh, look. Guano is the dessert du jour” than if the comment was, “There’s a pile of shit on my plate.” People who don’t curse don’t annoy me. People who commonly curse don’t annoy me, either–they bore me.

    If everything that annoys you pisses you off, what are you going to say when you’re really angry? That–really pisses me off? That’s just lame.
    Even the F word isn’t powerful any more. It’s used too often. So what do you use when you really need such a word?
    Nothing. There’s nothing left.