bad language

How about using "Hell's teeth and buckets of blood!" my (non-swearing) mother's exclamation. Also "Jesus wept! - and well he might" - and she a church-going woman.

Blimey - short for gorblimey or "God blind me!" - Another religious oath!

Grandson didn't bat an eyelash btw.

(I guess that's bad actually! )

I think I might have said something beginning with f in the pub yesterday when I knocked over a wineglass. I was only being noble, too, giving grandson some of my meat.

Crikey bags, skimmed your replies and of course I get the (irrefutable) logic.

Thanks elegran.

#bitboredwiththisonenow

Quite innocent but I always find Blimey O'Reilly does the trick for me unless of course I am talking to an Irish Farmer in which case I leave out the O'Reilly, just in case!

No offence meant to any farmers or indeed anyone from Ireland.

I find it impossible difficult to use any of the "bad" swear words as they would sound stupid coming from me anyway.

Bags

Hope DD doesn't choose that for the new baby if it's a girl.

Fancy having a name like BloodyNora. Oh well, names do seem to be getting stranger these days.

j07 I once stopped myself in the nick of time from saying 'bl**dy nora' to someone who was actually called that

PS...Since I became a Gransnetter, I've mellowed. Thanks to everyone, especially Jings

Can we say "fucking norah"? Or "fuckety-doos"?

Peers around the corner of the door...listens in...pays heed...doesn't get ruffled...likes you lot as you are...

Quite. And continuing in an 'academic' vein, if my grown up kids felt they had to use different diction when talking to me than to other adults, I wouldn't regard that as respect, but as silly condescension.

We have deviated from the OP and it has been a most interesting and thought-provoking digression. However, the fact remains that there is very little use of what might be termed heavy-duty swear words on Gransnet so the discussion on this thread is – in two meanings of the word – academic.

gosh I really started something off with this thread!!

agree with absent both f word and c word make me cringe inside.

i DO use f word more than I should, when angry, but would not expect my son to use it in my ear shot, RESPECT!!!!

"Innocent" or uninsulting words become insulting when they are applied in an insulting situation.

Context is how we learn the meaning of unfamiliar words. If we have always heard the four-letter words as vulgar insults, then that is how we perceive them, even when they are used in the hammer-on-toe situation. Meanings change as usage changes. When we have lived for 60 or 70 years, that annoys us as we still have our old mental dictionary.

Swear-words are not the only words that have become so by this process. In Mediaeval times, binding legal oaths were sworn "by our Lady" which became "By our Lady, that was a good pie" which morphed into "That was a bloody good pie"

The hopelessly dim village idiot was considered under the special care of God (he needed to be!) and the adjective "salig" - holy or blest - was used to describe such people. Then when unkind friends wanted to insult someone who had done something idiotic, they said he was "salig" - which became "silly".

In more recent times, the resident school for Downs syndrome children and those with learning difficulties in my neighbourhood was Gogarburn. Instead of saying that someone was silly, the standard childish insult around here was "You come from Gogarburn". Cretin, moron and imbecile started off as medical terms for those with specific reasons for very low intelligence, but were taken up as descriptions of anyone who had behaved in a stupid way.

I don't often need to talk about female genitalia (!) so alternative words are not needed anyhow. If I even did need to mention lady bits, it would be in a medical context.

I don't use the word 'cunt' because of the connotations attached to it. As I understand it, it's nearly always used in an insulting way. It's the being insulting that's at fault here, not the word. However, I accept that many (possibly even most) people would call it an obscene word because it is nearly always (possibly always nowadays) used by people being obscene.

So if I drop a hammer on my foot and say Fuck, I'm not being obscene or nasty, because the word thus used has no significant meaning. It's the equivalent of Ouch, which is probably what I would, in fact, say. Or I might even just go Argh! So that's what fuck means in that context. It's harmless.

If I tell someone to fuck off, my reason for using that term is what matters. If I use it angrily, I'm being rude or, at the very least, abrupt.

If I use it jokingly, as some people apparently do, it's pretty harmless.

Varying degrees of meaning depending on context. Context is all.

The fact that something is generally considered (by whom? what does that mean? how do you know? what/who are you basing this statement on?) to be vulgar or obscene doesn't necessarily make it so. And in any case, you'd first have to prove the truth of the statement that some words are generally considered to be vulgar or obscene.

In addition, I suggest that if what you state is true, it is still not the words that are vulgar or obscene, but what they name or describe is considered vulgar or obscene. For example, take the word 'cunt'. Essentially, it is a name for female genitalia. There is nothing vulgar or obscene about a part of the female body. BUT, the word is sometimes used as a way of being unpleasant towards someone. It is used as an insult. Even when it is used as an insult, the word is not vulgar or obscene. It is the person's use of the word, and possibly the person using it who is vulgar because they are associating a normal part of the female human body with disgustingness. There's no reason to do that unless the user is having disgusting thoughts and wants to be nasty. It's the person who is nasty, not the word.

Once again, it is the meaning attached, and the connotations of the meaning, that are problematic. Or, to out it another way, it is the intention of the speaker of such words that is the problem, not the words.

An Ecuadorean friend of mine who sometimes worried that his English would be misunderstood used to say "Listen to the meaning of what I'm saying, not just the words." It's a good approach.

Agreed!
Off to work, catch up later!

I get/got that Bags, with or without italics. My point is that some words are generally considered to be obscene or at least vulgar (unless you split hairs of course - then no words are obscene or vulgar, they are just words).

That's a good example Bags of how it is actually how words are used that can be offensive. I always told my children that there are no bad words, just words used badly.

I'm irritated by people who swear constantly and thoughtlessly but the odd well placed expletive doesn't bother me in the least.