I recently stumbled across a Facebook group entitled Swearing is just unintelligent
I quote from the introduction:
"the english language is full of words that can change phrases and make things sound just awesome"
I will overlook the inappropriate use of the word awesome here, and just make the point that I consider this to be just plain wrong.
I used to have this discussion many times with my mother, who was an English teacher. It was usually just after she had told me to stop swearing and mentioned something about whose house it was and who made the rules.
I challenge anyone reading to come up with a non-swear word that can express the same amount of anger / surprise / delight / disappointment / frustration etc. as the word FUCK.
There aren't any. None even come close. See Billy Connoly on the subject.
Swearing all the time or inappropriately, however, does make people look stupid. It should be kept to a minimum so that when it is used it has the right amount of impact.
This reminds me of an amusing story my brother told me once. He used to be a policeman in CID and had a colleague who was rather keen on profanity. One day he said they had been interviewing a particularly difficult and frustrating suspect. They had been trying to get the man to own up to something for most of the day and had several attempts at it.
Eventually, late at night, my brother's colleague decided to go into the interview room alone with the suspect. Don't ask me what he did. It was before the days of tape recordings and 'procedure'.
Anyway, 15 minutes later, the foul-mouthed detective emerged triumphant shouting, "The fucking fucker has fucking fucked!" by which he meant "The young gentleman who we suspected of those robberies has finally confessed."
Particularly for those of you residing in North America, I leave you with a classic lesson in the art of swearing.
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Tuesday, 26 February 2008
THE F***ING F***ER HAS F***ING F***ED
Labels:
Billy Connoly,
confession,
English,
fuck,
intelligence,
interrogation,
language,
police,
swearing
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