Slashdot Mirror
Today's Children Are Officially Potty Mouths
tetrahedrassface writes "When the Sociolinguistics Symposium met earlier this month swearing scholar Timothy Jay revealed that an increase in child swearing is directly related to an increase in adult swearing. It seems that vulgarity is increasing as pop culture continues to popularize vulgarities. The blame lies with media, public figures, politicians, but mostly ourselves. From the article: 'Children as young as two are now dropping f-bombs, with researchers reporting that more kids are using profanity — and at earlier ages — than has been recorded in at least three decades.'"
My nephew just turned 4 a little while back. Sadly, he has a speech impediment that has made him difficult, if not impossible, to understand until very recently. Over over the past 6 months or so his speech has improved considerable and we finally know... that the kid swears like a sailor, he's probably been swearing for years and no one ever knew it. Seriously, we're all in the kitchen and we hear "Holy shit!" come out of the living room, go in to see what's going on and he's watching Sesame Street. Obviously we tried and failed to not laugh, so I can't imagine we helped the situation any.
I don't know how others feel, but I've never felt some sort of stigma against using swear words. The only time I refrain is when it's socially unacceptable (i.e. at a funeral) because then other people would potentially become upset towards me. At my funeral though? I'm going to encourage it. From the grave.
Actually, there's a study that shows when people swear after getting hurt that it has a therapeutic effect. As in, hitting your thumb with a hammer accidentally and yelling Goddamit When you hold it in, it makes it worse. So I make a point to swear when I hurt myself, and I do feel better immediately.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Actually, everyone uses "curse words", just some people use more politically acceptable ones. So I don't think that's the entire answer.
I never used to "swear", though I certainly always had words I'd use if I hurt myself or was describing a negative situation etc. Since I'm no longer religious I've started drifting to using more conventional swear words - mostly when nobody else is around, in fact, so it's not to try and shock anyone. I still wouldn't swear in front of my family because they would find it heavily offensive. The most taboo of current swear words do seem to just roll off the tongue in a nice stress relieving way. Maybe it's purely a psychological thing like you say, but I think many current swear words have gotten to be where they are today just because they are fun to say, whether socially acceptable or not.
which is totally what she said
It IS the meaning behind the words that matters and that's what's been diluted in "the words" by overuse. So much that we don't even separate swears curses and vulgarities by category anymore.
At one time, "damn you" LITERALLY meant "I sincerely hope that God Almighty recognizes your irredeemable unworthiness and condemns you to burn in Hell for all eternity" where it was understood that both parties believed there was such a place and that a soul could be sent there to scream in agony literally forever. That would be a curse. No two year old even has enough understanding of things to muster the level of contempt for another required to utter that in sincerity.
The vulgarities were a lesser form of contempt. By using one, you were implying that the person you were speaking to was unworthy of any better. However, overuse might lead others to conclude that you yourself HAD no better and were a low person yourself. That's why parents were so adamant about their children not using vulgarities.
Obscenities were more of the nature of the vulgarities.
The fact that we're far more likely to hear "damn you" on television than "fuck you" is strong evidence that we've forgotten how to properly curse at all.