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How do you stop swearing?

For years, I have been trying to clean up my potty mouth. I blame my old boyfriend, Willy, who swore like a sailor. Bad influence.

Note I have not used swear words in my posts and comments. So far.

At my friend Cheryl's house (a Baptist minister and counselor), I used the bathroom. No toilet paper. "Some jackass left an empty roll," I thought, "probably Dave." (her husband)

Sitting on the can, I stretched to get toilet paper out of the cupboard way in the back, of course.

"The toilet paper holder spring went 'Sprong!' and it exploded apart all over the room," I told Cheryl. "What did you say?" she asked.

"Motherfucker!" I replied. She laughed.

LiterateHiker 9 Jan 2
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68 comments (51 - 68)

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1

The whole point of a "swear word" is to shock others or release personal frustration.
Very few people are actually shocked by "Bad Words" anymore, though some might pretend to be and most understand if you hit your thumb with a hammer you are going to likely shout out profanities, so for the most part swearing has become obsolete.
The intent put behind a word or phrase is what can be truly offensive, a bully need not swear to be offensive their words can be honey soaked and reasonable and yet by cadence and emphasis carry so much evil intent and implied threat it can send shivers of disgust and fear up and down your spine.

Here is a totally unrelated picture

1

Decorum slowly recovers as words lose their shock value. There's not much shock value left, since "fuck" now has about as much shock value as "gee willickens" did a century ago.

1

This is a rhetorical question, right?

My maintenance tech and I, at the factory where I once worked, spent 9 hours (out of our 12 hour shift) working on a particular machine, finally thought we had it fixed, and started it up- then watched it run one cycle before stalling again. He just said, absolutely deadpan, "Fucking fucker's fucked."

1

Impulse control. Work at it.

1

I stopped when I married my last wife and her one year old son. He was very smart and picked up language very quickly. So I would save all my swearing until I was with adults and out of his hearing range and then it was like a damn breaking and I swore in ways I never had before (quite embarrassing depending on whom I was with!) to get it out of my system. It worked and I kept it up until she took him and left me for her boyfriend when he was six or seven. My dog doesn't care if I use bad words as long as I pet him afterwards! LOL

@K9Kohle789 at a certain age they are like parrots! With no filter. I never swore around my Dad growing up, so I had lots of practice holding those words in. I don't think I swore in front of him until I was in my forties! Maybe even later than that.

1

Just admit it, it felt gooood to say it. Profanity is just another one of Gawd's gofts

1

When I was in the Air Force I cussed like a sailor. 🙂 Any one who was/is a member of the military will tell you it is part of military jargon Back in civilian life I just tried to watch it depending on the situation I was in. Then I became an elementary teacher. Third grade. I did not want to slip up in a moment of frustration and regret my word choice. I just stopped using profanity in all situations. I never slipped up and my vocabulary increased. I found different adverbs to use other than f***ing. After retirement I have found a few words easing back in, usually when I am by myself. For the most part I communicate without profanity.

1

Never started.

1

Well, I do curse but I know how to refrain myself when needed. At work I very seldom or don't curse.

1

I do watch the words I use around my grand kids and parents; and, of course, in certain social situations. But, other than that, I have no problem speaking whichever word makes its way out of my mouth. There are a select few, however, that I will not use. Fuck, in its various forms/combinations is not one that I avoid.

1

"If God is dead, then you lose the most important word in your language. And you will need a substitute." God (or perhaps "God", there's no way to tell) is one extreme, Osho explains, and when one extreme disappears, you will inevitably fall to the other extreme. (Why don't you just promote the #2 item at that extreme, I wondered. But I'm just a linguist, not a seer, so I probably don't understand these matters deeply enough.) And so, he tells us, "fuck" has become the most important word in our language. Beautiful linguification.

blzjz Level 7 Jan 3, 2020
1

it has been reported that those with higher intelligence are more likely to swear.... also reported swearing can reduce stress in crisis situations... curse away....

blzjz Level 7 Jan 3, 2020
1

Practice, practice, practice. In my younger days, I swore all the time. When I began working in a factory on the floor, swearing was SOP. Then I was promoted to management and swearing was not something done very much and done mostly outside of work. Very few managers swore and if you had to manage other employees, swearing at them certainly did not promote team work. Now I drive a school bus and any sort of swearing is just not done, the whole little pitchers have big ears thing, even a simple damn is frowned upon. I still swear a little but never in public.

1

If you swear rarely and thoughtfully, it is fine. The operative word is rare. Too often, it is nearly always a sign of a limited vocabulary (and all that implies) and stunted emotional development.

I swear on occasion but like to feel I have largely matured out of it. It also helps that when I am angry I get quiet, the angrier, the quieter. I don't do outbursts, I'm just not wired that way.

That sounds like a healthy ideal way to be. Annoyingly for me, nearly all my fam members are prone to outbursts and swear-a-thons when pissed off. I was able to curse like a sailor in 2 languages by 1st grade! heh XD

1

Stop watching the news 🙂

What is this "News" you speak of? I used to read the "news paper" and watch TV news everyday. I decided 10 years ago that I wasnt going to be sheeple for the propaganda machines.

While you are right that all media outlets are now owned by six White men, and all have corporate agendas, I have consistently found CNN to be relatively unbiased. Having said that I understand what you are talking about and that Rupert Murdoch eventually will own ALL the outlets. My money is on Rubert. I actually watch Fox for fact events like shootings or wrecks because they have so many outlets they generally have the first coverage available. After the others get it I turn to CNN and apologize to the cat for watching FOX 🙂

1

First you have to quit calling it swearing, and secondly you just have to use good judgment in how and when you use them. I do not think in todays society anyone should not express themselves colorfully and explicitly.

1

My grand father was a world war II drill Sargent with such a reputation. After the war he was out of military services, my grand mother had tried for some years to get him "saved" and get him '"cleaned" up, she prayed for him. While doing oil field work on top of an oil field derrick my grandfather said he heard an audiable voice tell him to "step out". He took it as step out and try going to church.

In all my years growing up living next door and doing a lot of things with him, I only ever heard him say one cuss word. He was just months before passing away in his 80s, alzheimers dementia and a broken hip and a nurse was trying to move him around and he said "damn it, it hurts" it shocked me and my mother.

A key thing I think he had a few non-vulger slang words that he would use instead of cussing. Once he was hammering and hit his thumbnail instead of the nail in the wood, he said "ahhhhhh, shoot-a-monkey".

Word Level 8 Jan 3, 2020

"Shut the front door". I've never understood how replacing cussing words is any better than saying them. I try not to cuss in front of children, mostly for their parents sake.

@SilentRage I understand what you are saying. I think of it as some thing like the connotations that words can have. For example: a baby leaves a little poopy doodle in their diaper, there is something more pleasant sounding than saying the baby shit its diaper. Saying, or conveying the same message but it is somehow different because of the delivery.

0

If i didnt have a damn swear word in my sentence, ugh. Lol
My daughter, her husband and her family moved here this past summer. First thing out of of her mouth. We have to.get used to your potty mouth lol...well if i fuck this or that once in awhile, im good to go...lol
I forgot to answer the question...
How do you stop swearing?
I do not know...

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