(because pictures of Bill Kaulitz make everything better)
For quite a while now, one of my favorite you-tube videos has been the one of Stephen Fry on the joys of swearing. I'll re-watch it every now and then when I need a dose of sanity; and am in love with the passionate and highly articulate defense of swearing which so wonderfully refutes all the anti-swearing arguments I grew up with.
It's only in the last few years that I've become comfortable swearing outside of my own head (although when I talk with my parents a very, very heavy filter still goes up), and the freedom to express myself with any words I choose is still glorious.
Growing up, swearing was strictly forbidden. Anything coming CLOSE to swearing was strictly forbidden.
We whispered in horror to each other when we overheard someone 'taking the Lord's name in vain', and when my cousin's ex-wife referred to him as an "asshole" I was almost too embarrassed to write the word it in my diary and so wrote it with the tiniest letters possible.
"Geez" wasn't allowed. "Shut up" wasn't allowed. In the homeschool group we were part of, one of the boys got in big trouble for having said that a soccer team "sucked".
It's amusing now to remember the look of shock and horror on my mother's face when I dropped a heavy jar of salsa on my foot and yelped "Damn it!" I was a senior in college at the time, and she had never before heard me utter a swear word in my life.
When I first started college, it took a while to adjust to hearing swear words as a casual, sometimes even affectionate, part of conversation, and it took even longer to start feeling comfortable using those words myself. Now, putting on the 'parent language filter' feels strange and unnatural. And yesterday when I dropped my ipod on the hard tile floor at work and cracked the surface, I don't think any words would have expressed my feelings more succinctly than "Fuck! Really?! Oh, fucking hell..."
lol, I'd forgotten that 'shut up' wasn't allowed :D And just how is that phrase swearing? Anyway, yeah, *totally* get you on this, and while I can't stand people who for some reason feel the need to drop a swear word or f-bomb every sentence, well placed swearing certainly has it's very rightful place. In fact, I think it can be used downright artistically!
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