What was the fallout when you swore at someone?

Mom charged my sister and I $.05 every time we told the other to ‘Shut up!” One time, I blew my week’s allowance by screaming that at my sister twice in a row. It was worth the expense.

I don’t recall ever using a swear word directed at another person. Effective language to get a point across rarely, if ever, includes one.

I’ve never had major fallout from swearing at someone (not that I do it very often). When I moved to the South, however, I did notice that many people down here tend to whisper their swear words as if that makes them count less. Accordingly, I have been looked at askance for not following suit a few times. I also have a friend whose mother insists that her adult children (and all of their friends) never swear around her. Not just under her roof, mind you—anywhere. But we like her, so we play along.

@Pied_Pfeffer “Effective language to get a point across rarely, if ever, includes one.”

Not quite true, actually. And it turns out there are other benefits as well.

I swore during an interchange with a woman who was overstepping her boundaries at work one day. I didn’t swear AT her but during the conversation. I shouldn’t have. She deserved it, but I shouldn’t have. No fallout apart from her possibly not liking me, but that’s no great loss. I don’t much like her either and my comment was justified but not the best response.

Other than that, I haven’t had any fallout from my swearing. Australians do seem to swear more than people from other nationalities, in my experience.

Shit, I swear at people all the fucking time, and you can be damn sure that it’s not my swearing that they take issue with!

Seriously though, most of the time I swear, it’s usually because because someone did something egregiously wrong, and those I swear at are more offended my my implication that the world doesn’t revolve around their spoiled little candy ass than about the cleanliness of my language.

On other occasions, like the beginning of this post, it’s for effect. Depending on context, it may be for emphasis, humour, or just my habit of speaking as I think without those pesky filters.

In no case have I ever had any fallout as the result of my sailor-like vocabulary; any fallout I’ve gotten has been solely from my defying the expectations/desires of others.

But when it comes to swearing, I find those that claim swearing is a sign of mental inferiority or character defect to be FAR more offensive than someone who just calls me a fuckwad or asshole. Condescension from the “holier than thou” crowd looking down on those who sprinkle a little spice into their vocabulary is a far more personal and venomous attack on a person than any expletive.

If someone thinks they’re sparing people’s feelings by “keeping it clean”, they’re not. Not only that, but it implies a degree of dishonesty as that sort of behavior is consistent with one who has plenty to hide and therefore can never be fully trusted, especially since they obviously bullshitted themselves into thinking they are utterly infallible just because their vocabulary is G-rated.

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@Pied_Pfeffer Swear jars…. that’s funny! My mother never did that because she knew it’d be hypocritical. While she’s normally fairly fairly clean-mouthed, her Bostonian roots come out when she’s behind the wheel. Riding in the car with her is where I got not just the classic things that you may here people call their fellow motorists, but also ones like, “needle-dicked bug-fucker”. Had a boss try that too, but it turned out that the crew we had would’ve wound up earning below the federal minimum wage after blowing their paycheck by Tuesday afternoon, so it was nixed pretty quick.

“Effective language to get a point across rarely, if ever, includes one.”
Not really. Maybe if you are sensitive enough that the word “very” is so extreme that you have a visceral adrenal response then yes, but those of us who live in a world that isn’t a sugar-coated place that makes Sesame Street look like South Central need vocabulary with a little punch to it. While swearing can get to the point where it’s tedious to hear when someone is gratuitous about it (like Richard Pryor), when properly used, it does add emphasis, especially in those situation where clean language just won’t convey the same idea nearly as concisely.

For instance, in a machine shop, saying that something is “sharp” or even “extremely sharp” means little. We deal with sharp stuff all the time and don’t give a rat’s ass. However, “fucking sharp” means that even OSHA-approved Kevlar gloves might not keep you from losing a finger, therefore extra caution is warranted. And when you’re on an aircraft carrier, things that “may cause severe injury” are less scary than things that “will cut your ass in half”.

Depending in intonation, it may even convey what “clean” words cannot, like the scope of mindnumbing shock as the planes hit the towers on 9/11. And I’m pretty sure that those who weren’t scared to say “Fuck!” handled the emotional trauma a lot better than those of more delicate natures.

@SavoirFaire You forgot one; swearing is a painkiller. In fact, Psychology Today listed 7 benefits of swearing

I agree with @Pied_Pfeffer. I can’t remember ever using a real swear word directed at another person. I mutter, “Fuck.” when I’m late and in a panic, but I usually roll my eyes at myself because of that. It seems so silly to me to invent words, then declare them taboo.

While I don’t get offended by their usage, neither do I see the point of swear words. I think all those benefits to swearing may be be disregarding one important thing: For swear words to “work”, you have to accept their status. It’s not innate, and parents who do not teach their children that some words are inherently shocking may be surprised at the lack of appeal those terms have when treated simply as words.

About 4 years ago when a friend who loved to get into hardcore, grinding debate, held me hostage one night on the phone and kept pounding his points home and then, getting agitated and angry when I wasn’t agreeing. F. is a really bright guy but he doesn’t have conversations he takes hostages. He kept saying to me over and over again, ” Come on, you’re a smart women, WHY are you not getting this!?” I finally told him to fuck off and hung up on him. haha

He was immediately contrite and called back apologizing profusely.
I love him but the man is freaking exhausting, EVERYTHING is a podium for debate.

@jerv Good catch. Much obliged!

@longgone “It seems so silly to me to invent words, then declare them taboo.”

Sure, but why is that a reason to not say them?

@SavoirFaire “Sure, but why is that a reason to not say them?”

It isn’t. Rather, it’s a reason for why I can’t see them as powerful – and their power is what makes them appealing.

@longgone ”...parents who do not teach their children that some words are inherently shocking may be surprised at the lack of appeal those terms have when treated simply as words.”

I can see that. To me, the shock is a bit less than it is for many people simply because I treat them a bit more casually than many people. I was never taught that they were “taboo” or anything, so I never developed that guilt complex some people surrounding “forbidden” words.
So for me, the appeal of the word “fuck” has more to do with it’s versatility than any sort of shock. Yes, it can denote magnitude or emphasis well, but the real draw for me is the fact that it’s the linguistic equivalent of duct tape.

@longgone I suppose. But how others see them might also contribute to their power. Conversation is a collaborative enterprise, after all. Just to be clear, though, I do treat so-called “swear words” as “just words,” and I don’t use them very frequently. Furthermore, my wife and I decided in advance not to bother watching our mouths (or our music) around our son for precisely the reason you mention (that is, to make them less shocking or appealing to him). But as someone who was raised with a very strong taboo effect on these words—strong enough that I never uttered even one until I was nearly finished with high school—I just can’t get on board with the moralizing that goes on about them or the condemnation that gets aimed at people who use them.

Well, my wife was not overly pleased. How pissed will be determined by whether or not I get lucky in the next few days (as opposed to weeks). And, I was not really swearing at her, just the situation and the fact that she cannot handle simple technological problems but has to get me to solve the problem for her (this time it had to do with why the TV was just a bunch of snow and not the game she wanted to see so I have to leave my program to figure out that she has used the wrong remote and changed the channel incompatible with the cable settings. If this was the first time I would understand but it is not).

@SavoirFaire and @jerv Good points. My parents advised us that swearing may mean making ourselves unpopular with some people, while also saying that they were not shocked by swear words. Worked very well. Children may want to shock their parents, but most of them want to be well-liked in general.

Since we’re on the topic, here are two of my favorite gratuitous uses of profanity. NSFW, obviously.