Send the Verbal Vulgarity to the Vomitory

One of my best friends refers to me as her “classy friend” because I don’t swear.  I’ll take the compliment and admit that it’s true: I don’t swear.  But I’m pretty sure my standard wardrobe of jeans and sweatshirts disqualifies me from the Classy Clique.

As a teenager I tried swearing.  It was fun; it was exciting to keep my private language away from my mother; it was a rite of passage that made me feel included in the group.  It also ate away at my naturally positive thoughts.  Using curses aloud eventually crept into my self-talk.  I realized within a couple of years the negative effect these words had on my psyche and decided one year to stop. It was one my few New Year’s Resolutions that stuck.

Years later, I’m well into middle age and have noticed a rising use of swearing among adults in general that just wasn’t heard 10 years ago.  Do these adults think they are teenagers and need to rebel by using a secret language?  More likely they seem to use swears as a way to flaunt their adulthood. “I’m an adult and can do what I want!” – but, that actually sounds exactly like an 18 or 19 year old.

In my opinion, swearing is crass and vulgar.  Almost every swear I can think of connotes something negative.  For example, “asshole” connotes someone’s rectum. Not a pleasant visual.  If instead of using asshole, I say “the DMV worker was such a jolt headed bum-bailey” it insults the worker, gets my point across but doesn’t create an unflattering visual. It’s actually fun to say: bum-bailey, bum bailey, bum bailey!  The more negative words you use, the more negative attitude you create for yourself.  But substitutes can actually be fun: Oh fiddlesticks! Don’t be a nincompoop! Gee-whillikers that was fun.

Alas, in the era of easy offense, I mean absolutely no denigration to those who swear.  Language is used to communicate and if you get your point across, then your language is successful despite word selection or pronunciation.

I personally choose to avoid cursing myself and the proliferation of making swear words acceptable.  When you share a post on Facebook from a page called “You Can’t Make This Shit Up” – I hit ‘hide post’ followed by ‘see less from You Can’t Make This Shit Up’ and finally ‘hide all from You Can’t Make This Shit Up.”  I realize I’m incredibly literal, but do you get that using the term “Food Porn” is normalizing “porn” (pornography) as something acceptable?  Yes, I’ve digressed but that little tidbit won’t fit into a blog on another topic either.

Shakespeare offers some great alternatives to curses:

This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet

… a most toad spotted traitor

…brazen faced varlet

You egg, you fry of treachery

Why, thou clay brained guts, thou knotty pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow catch

Choices abound when looking for a substitute.  Turn to the Old Bard, make something up … fitzdookie!  Or, maybe there IS a word in English that will work, expand your vocablulary!  This actually has the exact opposite effect of swearing.  You LEARN a new word and force your brain to create a new synapse – pop!

Cantankerous ~ bamboozle ~ cockamamie ~ discombobulate ~ flummox ~ gobbledygook ~ mollycoddle ~ shenanigan ~ snollygoster ~ widdershins