quote:

Originally posted by Beancooker:
for some reason a long winded string of words deemed deeply offensive, make me feel less pain?

One science journal article I read reported that swearing does actually have that effect on many people. It helps most, though, if the individual never or rarely swears otherwise.

As for stopping, though, I find that it’s simply a matter of what I want to do.
For many years I stopped almost completely, but in the company of one friend who started in my presence I started again as well. It felt good to have the sense of being unconfined and we both knew that we wouldn’t lose the respect of the other.

My Christian buddy at work asked me why I cursed when I, too, am a Christian. I stopped that day, but I substituted other words. I’m a former USMC, and I had BAD potty mouth.

So, for the last 33 years, I was like that Italian in Johnny Dangerously where I’d use “fargin’bastich” and the like. After Battlestar Gallactica, I started using “frack.” I still try to limit all of that, and will realize who’s around before I use even those replacements.

I don’t say the ‘S’ word, and I don’t even say the company “Schiit Audio,” replacing it with “shite.”

quote:

If I was to walk into a church ......

God also knows what you are saying outside of church. Keep that in mind.

I struggle with this as well. I try not to but its that slip out before thought kicks in. I've slipped around my kids, never in church. I never cussed until college and its been a bad habit since.

quote:

Originally posted by DougE:

quote:

If I was to walk into a church ......

God also knows what you are saying outside of church. Keep that in mind.

I still curse more than I'd like to, but I have managed to pretty much not use the Lord's name in any of my cursing, ever.

I also don't see a problem with it. I swear all the time...but never in church or around church members. That's just common sense. So yeah, I can stop when I need to but please don't tell me I should therefor be able to stop all the time. I see no problem with swearing as I live my life.

My wife has better self control as she seldom if ever swears around the extended family. Well, there was this one time when one of her sisters was really pushing her buttons over something. My wife stood up, looked at her sister and loudly told her it was time to shut the fuck up. It was a crowded room and my nieces still talk about it in hushed tones.

I do it when frustrated, which is often and easily. In my work this happens a lot, for example the fucking piece of shit car wheel hubs that I'm trying to remove rusted solid. Also when I misplace something - some things, like my phone, keys or wallet, trigger this more than others - I stress out, just short of a panic attack. This also opens the cursing floodgates. While most of my work is done "behind the scenes," it still looks bad to anyone watching.

I suspect the ability to stop cursing is easier when there is an overriding ingrained custom against it--such as not doing it in church. Most of us have been strongly conditioned not to use taboo words in certain environments, and most are able to control their speech under those conditions.

I will say it's a lot easier to avoid cursing if one never started doing it. If it's not habitual there is no impetus to curse.

flashguy

I too cuss but have made the decision to do so less, and it’s difficult.

However, I’ve been watching Sam The Cooking Guy on YouTube. He’s interesting and had a good cooking show, restaurant and books, etc, but he has a filthy mouth and it’s directed to his adult sons all the time.

It’s disgusting to speak to your sons like he does, not just the cussing but the sexual innuendos.
.

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:
I quit all the time; for about 30 seconds … sometimes longer, sometimes less.

…I can relate to this…don’t “cuss” in front of the chillian or my parents (not my siblings though)…but other than them there folks…not too upset …it feels right in these mother fuckin’ clown times…sorry for my French!

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
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.

I've also wondered when it's tied to religious reasoning. X word is sinful but say "Freaking" is ok. So you're telling me that your chosen deity isn't able to distinguish that you uttered the word in anger/malice? Wouldn't it really be the intention supporting the phrase and not the phrase itself that the deity would find objectionable?

So I’m not trying to clean up my language for anyone but myself. Not God, or My wife, or anyone else. I used “Church” as a place I wouldn’t swear, just like “your living room”, not necessarily a place I visit. It was just used as an example.

As far as I am concerned, saying “this fucking sucks” and “this fricking sucks” carry almost the exact same meaning. The former seems normal, the latter seems odd. This has been brought up a few times. I just don’t get it. If I were one to get offended by being called names, saying “you’re a cocksucker” is no more offensive than saying “you enjoy giving homosexual fellatio”. The latter sounds odd, but damn it may be more offensive because it’s not swearing.

I also understand that this is a national forum, and in different regions of America, different swear words carry different levels of offensiveness depending on region.

One other thought I had was if these words are used all the time, they lose their value and weight with the people that hear you speak them. If I say “shut the fuck up” to some guys I work with, they wouldn’t even think twice. When Bassamatic’s wife told her sister “shut the fuck up” family still talks about it years later. She doesn’t swear, so when she does, the weight those words carry is far more than when I say them.

Back to my original question and issue… I am sitting here having a coffee and challenging myself to how long I can make it without swearing. I agree that frustration and anger definitely bring out the words. See, my day doesn’t have much frustration or anger, and if it does, it’s only because I did not control my emotions.

So maybe respect is the reason I choose to shut it off. If that’s the case, I should be able to respect myself enough to stop. I quit smoking cigarettes after 28 years. I quit drinking for a good long while and have limited what I do drink. Both of those were pretty easy. This should be even easier, it’s words!

Anyways, I have challenged myself to give an honest, hard effort at not swearing (out loud) today.

Think of it as muscle memory. When you get a bad habit shooting it takes a lot of training to to "un-learn" that bad habit.
Swearing is similar, hard to stop us bad words the slid out of your mouth so freely.

Ask me how I know.

quote:

Originally posted by bigwagon:
.....

FIIK

Schizoaffective disorder is rearing its ugly head?

I swear when I don't have to think about the reaction I'll get. Church, PTA meeting are examples of when I won't swear. Swearing is a great exclamation point in many situations.

When I lived in New Jersey years ago I was a service manager for a fire protection company,a firefighter and a fire service instructor at our county fire academy all at the same time.
With all that said swearing was a way of life in those situations. For me it was natural.
The funny thing in my entire life I never heard my parents swear except once in my life. I was not brought up around it however it became second nature to me as I became an adult.

Fast forward twenty two years ago. My wife and I moved to central Florida and I went to work for that big entertainment company in central Florida.
In the first few months there I had to think very hard about what I was going to say and how to say it. After a while my habit of swearing went away.

Fast forward another several years,I left the entertainment company and went to work in the heavy equipment field. Within about a week I was back to swearing like I never left New Jersey.

After the heavy construction equipment job vanished in the great depression of 2009/2010 I ended up working in retail and swearing once again was not aloud.
Once again it took a little while of thinking what I was going to say.
I guess in the end for me it was a learned habit I was able to break with out much problem.

Beancooker -- from your description, it seems to me that you have no problem turning it off in situations where it is clearly inappropriate, so I don't see what the problem is.

quote:

Originally posted by Powers77:
X word is sinful but say "Freaking" is ok.

One of the things I remember from my high school days some 60 or so years ago was a teacher’s telling the class that expressions like “geeze” or even “gee” were just euphemisms for the taking-in-vain “Jesus.” Thanks, Teach, for pointing that out and giving me something else to flog myself about, but it’s something I think about whenever I hear some respectable person say freaking, flipping, fracking, or even effing.

If I have to accept the premise that it's hard to stop, then it's like any other habit that's hard to stop. Whatever the problem you perceive with it, if you want to stop, no matter how hard it is, you can do it.

Well, you have to look at it objectively. Maybe you aren't the problem. You've already indicated that you are able to refrain in certain settings. Perhaps certain stressors (idiots) are responsible for this habit you've developed. Maybe the entire condition is predicated on your environment. The actual solution might be to simply work on your reactions to whatever the stimulus is that results in swearing. 10 seconds before responding to idiocy?