My parents didn't swear when my brother and I were kids. Or if they did, I never heard them do so.
Occasionally, in moments of great frustration, one of them might exclaim 'Hell's bells and buckets of blood' or 'Jesus wept', but that was about the extent of it.
The reason I bring this up is that I swear like the proverbial trooper. So it stands to reason that this is a talent that I picked up outwith the Groanin' Jock childhood homestead.
As far as I can recall, I began cursing when I changed schools in Primary Two. I moved from a class of six-year-olds to a school of only 13 pupils, all of whom sat in the same room.
This mingling with 12-year-olds must have opened my eyes to the wonderful world of obscenities, and I've never looked back.
Nowadays, my speech is liberally peppered with swear words, and none is used more than that age-old favourite - the F-word. (Though I swear too often whilst talking, I still balk at the idea of typing 'bad words' - it must be my journalistic training).
Whether in use as a noun, a verb or an adjective, I do tend to over-use the F-word. When coupled with my fondness for a badly-misused term for an illegitimate child, I have a worryingly gutter-level vocabulary for one so educated.
Which is why, today, I am making a resolution - to cut all cursing from my day-to-day speech. I will still, on occasion, use sweary words to indicate extreme displeasure - such as when battering my bandaged toe off of a door, or when Rangers concede a goal.
So, I can expect to swear at least 300 times in the next 48 hours. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
4 comments:
I agree with ya GJ, I too probably use cuss words more often than I should. You know you do when your 4 year old is watching you play some shoot 'em up game and says "Shoot his fucking ass off Dad".... I only print it them when it is necessary for the story...
Being former Military I am able to get very creative with "bad" words.
I can even make them sound like "good" words.
Ralph - That's one reason why I want to give up swearing - if and when I have kids, I don't want them to learn swearing from me - that's a skill best learnt from your peers!
Ole Blue - I tend to lack imagination on the swearing front. My personal favourite is a Billy Connolly one, Jesus suffering f***.
Second go at this, blogger messed it up and it disappeared.
I never heard my parents swear! I do sometimes but not a great deal and not in conversation. I to cringe at putting it in print for some reason and chicken out and go F*&^ instead.
But when I do find it in print depending on the circumstances it does bother me a wee bit if it is gratuitous don't know why. It does not bother me any other time just in print on blogger... hmmm? Guess what, and hay I'm not ejimacated past secondary as is apparent on my blog. But I still do not like to post it.
Lastly my kids get made fun off at the school because they don't swear, fortunately they do not care.
Interesting subject though.
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