So I swear. A lot. I have realized this of late. I didn’t used to. When I started my current position, I never swore around employees, or much at all.
Recently I noticed I swear a lot. I have made a solid effort to stop, but half the time the words roll off the tongue before I realize it.

Here is where it gets weird. If I was to walk into a church, restaurant, or into any one of your living room, not one bad word would come out. I would speak perfect English.

So why is it that sometimes it shuts off naturally, and some times it seems impossible to shut off?

I quit all the time; for about 30 seconds … sometimes longer, sometimes less.

Fuck if I know.

Waiting…waiting…

quote:

Originally posted by bigwagon:
Fuck if I know.

That was my first thought as well.

It is a matter of conditioning. I am sure a behavioral psychologist could work up a program for you.

I learned effective communication (profanity) in the military and as a cop. I am now bi-lingual. I speak fluent profanity and broken English.

This is a common problem in todays work place.Born of the people we are forced to work with on a daily basis.I had a similar problem.I found I was swearing and drinking for no reason.Thankfully my job gave me a reason.

Profanity is the linguistic crutch of inarticulate fuckheads.

Why? Is it evil, somehow? You know when to refrain, apparently, so, what's the problem?

Think about it for a second- you're separating language considered to be profane, from all the rest of the words in you vocabulary toolkit. Are these words evil, somehow? Take certain jokes or stories for example. You can tell a really dirty joke or a really dirty story without using one word of profanity. If you told such jokes or stories, does that somehow make them less vulgar, because they contain no profanity?

If you were to tell us that you curse like a drunken sailor in all company and in all circumstances, that would be different. If you did such a thing, I think it would reasonable to consider you to be genuinely low-class, entirely uncultured trash and I want nothing to do with such people. But, that's not what you told us. You told us that you can turn it off when it needs t be turned off. So, I don't understand what's at issue here.

There's nothing special about profanity, so, since you know when it is inappropriate and you refrain from using profanity when it's prudent to do so, I don't see a problem.

Why not stop using words that begin with the letter "T" or have seven letters in them? Whta you're doing seems to me to be as arbitrary as that.

quote:

Originally posted by Jim Shugart:
Profanity is the linguistic crutch of inarticulate fuckheads.

lol

LOL!

Best thing read today!!!

Thank you, Jim

One of my favorites…

How about answering the man's question? I see perhaps two serious responses, one of which is mine. Why do you think he posted this? So that you guys could hoot it up?

I will take a shot at an answer:
Its difficult to stop because its a long term deeply ingrained habit.
Thats how it is for me, anyway.

I find that I curse more when I am frustrated or angry, so for me its triggered emotionally.

When Im mad I have to work really hard not to curse.

First meal at home after returning from Vietnam in 1967, I asked my dad to pass the fuckin' salt. He did.

Para, you make a very good point. I have tried to tell my wife that the words are only offensive because you allow yourself to be offended by hearing it. I find a loud sharp crack, like a gunshot, a box or pallet falling flat, far more offensive.

I guess part of the reason I don’t want to swear much of the time is that I don’t want to be viewed as low class, or an inarticulate fuckface.

I could be wrong, but maybe my issue is respect. If I were to go to a church, restaurant, your home, since I don’t know you, I would speak in a respectful manner.
When I’m at work I swear, and maybe it has to do with not having as much respect for certain teammates as others. There are a few people who are nice, polite, and cultured. I have a lot of respect for them, and I don’t swear around them.
Some of the people I work with, maybe I don’t respect as much as others and so I don’t bother to change my language.

Now there are also a couple guys I work with that I respect a lot, but I swear when chatting with them as that is their atmosphere.

Now where that theory doesn’t totally work, is my wife. She never swears. Ever. She hates hearing it and doesn’t want me to say swear words. I respect her more than anyone else. I don’t swear around her usually. But if I hurt myself (I have really bad arthritis in my left wrist. Certain movements hurt like I cannot explain) some of the words that just flow out are pretty bad. This very well could be explained that it fucking hurts and for some reason a long winded string of words deemed deeply offensive, make me feel less pain?

quote:

Originally posted by Jimbo Jones:
I find that I curse more when I am frustrated or angry, so for me its triggered emotionally.

When Im mad I have to work really hard not to curse.

Similar here. Though it's effortless to refrain around my kids.
10.5 years & don't think I've ever uttered a single one in their presence.

I seem to be quite good at reeling in "black Barting" as my grandfather called it. Particularly when I'm in a clearly defined venue that precludes it. But when the clear definition of if the venue allows it gets more hazy, I make some mistakes. My wife, a retired elementary teacher, mostly kindergarten, luckily was good at school, but not quite as good around my kids when they were little.

I did get in trouble with the "f" word a few years ago during a sailboat race. A fellow competitor had his small children on board as crew and was late for the start. When you haven't gotten to the pre start area, you have no right of way to those who were there before the start. He acted like he had the rights of a proper starter, fouled me, and actually struck me physically with his boat. He broke several rules. I let "f" words fly freely and upset his kids. He had to go home as a result.