To swear or not to swear?

The language and the words we favor, put to use to speak our mind, have always flavours to them - some are quite acceptable, whereas some others are unkind. To swear or not to swear is up to choice, and those of us who bear in mind some social skill can dodge the ill that can emerge when people nonchalantly voice themselves. Behind the issue is the fact, that in the art of self-expression lies a gap. We simply lack a common ground, some words that are unbound to filthy meanings, yet express the anger, pain and stress.

Four-letter words are known to be used for more than just insults in fights and commotions. In the New York Times Pareles (2011) suggested, that pop artists use these words for promotion, and added that they help develop an image that grants success on the market. Yet, this strategy also creates an impression or mark, met with grudging. And many a fan can be lost by wrongly judging the limit of inappropriateness the public can handle, thus hampering the artist’s futher success.

It is a widely spread belief that cursing taints society and dims our lore, however, through the use of cursing - quietly - the language suffers even more. First of all, foul language rarely strays from its restricted path, and amidst its many ways of being hardly more than vague, it has detached all accuracy and turned but meaningless, full changeability. Inducing change, interpreting a word at random - quite like metaphores are used - the fouler words obstruct communication, being ineffective, often loose. To send a clearer message and express oneself efficiently, the use of colorful and descriptive words can be suggested, which cannot simply be outdone or bested with profanity.

Secondly, regarding language, simply choosing words can influence our prowess and our skilfulness. Due to less imagination used to convey our thoughts, the carefully constructed structure of a language suffers worst. Repeating swearing exclamations, using them in ways that contradict in many a case all logical and accepted language structures, leads to the use of even more abuse of language, alternatives and sentence fractions.

Even though the use of stronger words has been proven to relieve real pain - and so there is a mental reason that, when sullen or in anger, people curse - they do so in vain. For example Gray (2000) pointed out, that cursing as a mental medicine, like any other, looses in effectivness when used too much, and also that some other words could carry similar effects. And when one’s social status does demand respect to proper use of words, there is no other way but avoiding saying, out aloud, a curse. Holding that in mind I’d like to also draw attention to the fact, that in the mentioned work by Gray he says some languages lack the concept of a ’swearing word’, in fact, among some cultures even, no such words exist.

The gist of this review does not insist that swear words should be exiled, but applied to interaction only after careful thought. The social awkwardness and offence swearing can create could be avoided if we were to use some sought-for neutral utterances. Swearers could just try reverting to some humorous expressions, for a skilled and canny joker can express the same emotion without harm but istead please the crowd to get praise and ovation.

References

Gray, Andrew. 2000. Swearing in English. Available at

http://www.andrewgray.com/essays/swearing.htm, accessed 5 April 2011.

Pareles, Jon. 2011. From Cee Lo Green to Pink, Speaking the Unspeakable. Available at

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/arts/music/from-cee-lo-green-to-pink-speaking-the-unspeakable.html, accessed 5 April 2011.