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What the F*ck

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The English language has a many a swear word and most of us take great advantage of this.  According to statistics swear words make up about .7% of a person’s vocabulary. That doesn’t seem like a lot but in the grand scheme of things, a.k.a. all the absolutely useless words that we all know, its quite a significant number. Its proven that children tend to know at least one swear word before they know the alphabet at around 4-6 years old which is admittedly very amusing but also shows how integral swearing is to our everyday speech.

I happen to think swearing enriches our language and can greatly assist in conveying emotion. My favourite and definitely most used swear word is the ever charming ‘fuck’ as it can mean so many things in different contexts. For example, to show something/someone is good, bad, painful or just when everything just goes horribly wrong. It’s a go-to really. Swearing helps us to communicate effectively. It doesn’t only show our meaning in a sentence but also our emotional response allowing us to express anger and disgust. It can be an alternative to physical violence as it’s offensive and, if said with enough vigour, a lot of emotion. In my opinion telling someone to ‘fuck off’ is better than punching them in the jaw. A popular opinion I should hope.

Your opinion on swearing is probably affected by how people felt about it while you were growing up. Personally, my family was quite fond of a good swear word (to convey emotion of course) and I consequently, could swear like a sailor by the time I was 10. However, if my mother caught me saying a particular 4 letter word beginning with ‘c’ she would threaten to wash my mouth out with soap. Its now only used in extreme situations and definitely mumbled under my breath and the occasional euphemism of; see you next Tuesday. I think its amusing that we find some words more offensive than others even though the etymology of the word is probably very underwhelming. Why is one of the most offensive words in the English language just a rude way of saying vagina? I guess we shall never know.

 

I can see why some people may dislike the use of swearing if it’s used excessively. Swearing too much makes it lose its meaning and takes away the impact that comes with an unexpected swear word.  You could also say it’s a lazy way to speak as you couldn’t be bothered or lacked the intelligence to think of another word to say. I think this is incorrect however because if I say ‘fuck’ after banging my shin into the coffee table everyone knows that I am in an immense amount of pain and I’m not particularly impressed about it. However, if I was to loudly say ‘My gosh that hurt’ you would indeed be informed that I have hurt myself, but it doesn’t have the same impact. I’d probably look like a bit of a weirdo too.

To conclude I have no issues with swearing and I think it can add a lot of impact and emotion to the way we speak. Its also rather entertaining to think of creative insults to call the coffee table that assaulted you.
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