Simple question, simple answer. Or is it?
Yes, actually.
As far as I know, using profanity too often will get you labelled as vulgar, while using too few will give you a hard time with your mates. Especially if they are a bunch of foul-mouthed pricks.
I generally try to avoid the kind of people that would judge me for using different words than "normal" to express the same things I otherwise would be talking about (frustration, emphasis, excitement, etc). The former are more common than the latter.
I don't think the latter would give you a hard time if you never swore, but they're likely to give you a hard time if you use infantile baby talk soundalikes as drop-in replacements for swear words. I'd say they're even justified in mocking you. Words get their meaning in the context in which they are spoken, not the actual sounds that come out of your mouth, so using these soundalikes doesn't change any one bit about the offensiveness of what you're saying. Unless you're talking to the people in the first group. Which I avoid because they judge me for that reason.
Then again, there are people who claim that using profanity allows one to "vent", while there are others that say that never using will help you reach "salvation" (to each her/his own).
Say a word right now. Did that help you vent?
Now say a word people call profanity. Did that do anything else?
Didn't really think so.
They're just words.
What I don't get is that people aren't even saying the things the words are describing are "bad" or "inapporpriate". There are many "acceptable" ways to talk about defecation, sexual intercourse, or sexual organs, but if you use these different sounds it's "bad". Why?
It gets more confusing to me when you get to expletives, which can be any sound at all considering how they are defined.
Another thing: do you feel comfortable when people keep cussing around you?
If you're made uncomfortable by cussing, there's something wrong with you.
Do you join them? Do you feel offended? Do you simply walk away? What do you do?
Tell us.
I think you wrote this post assuming most readers aren't "cussers" (I don't really appreciate a somewhat derogatory label being applied to me because I use different sounds to describe the same things as you, so fuck you).
If you couldn't tell, I think society's position on curse words is ridiculous. So I use them a lot in the hopes of "desensitizing" society. I stop at words that are used to refer to a person in an extremely negative way based on their race / sexual orientation ((BAN ME PLEASE) / (BAN ME PLEASE)) because I don't insult people based on those things, but otherwise I don't exactly hold back. (if you want me to explain exactly why i don't use (BAN ME PLEASE) or (BAN ME PLEASE) i will but this post is long enough)
Disclaimer: My bitterness toward anti-cussing is brought to you by the 5 or 6 FCC violations that I would have racked up had it not been for a radio delay.
Pardon the redundancy, but I want to ask the OP something in particular.
This is pretty true. I'm Christian, so since I was a little kid I was taught that swearing is terrible. I grew up not swearing because it was against my religion.
I've got to ask where in the Bible it says you can't say shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, etc.
