There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to swearing — no handbook that definitively determines when it’s okay, when it’s not or how to do it well. That’s why I consider swearing to be an art form — one that’s breached more areas of life than any other.
A single swear word, slipped into an argument at just the right moment, will handily best an opponent. The gifted swearer can bring forth the most potent swear word on demand, while the novice might find themselves reciting what they should have said, several hours after the argument.
Often this rehearsal is done alone in the mirror.
We also can’t discount the remarkable power swear words have to ameliorate pain. Next time you stub your toe or bonk your head, tell me if I’m wrong.
There’s something freeing and wildly expressive about yelling the F- word when something really, really hurts. It releases tension and helps you feel more in control.
The night I was called to the hospital because my mother had fallen and her leg was now on sideways at an unnatural angle, was the moment I discovered my mother is either a saint, extremely repressed or just really bad at swearing. As the attendants held her down to pull her limb back into alignment, she winced and held her breath, but did not say one nasty word.
That’s how I know I’m adopted.
Perhaps it should also be noted that if the CIA is looking for a good operative, they should hire my mother. No matter how painfully she is tortured for information, golly-gosh she will not break.
Most commonly, swearing is used as an indispensable tool for enhancing tall tales and for making good jokes great. Profanity is not, however, the secret sauce for being funny. You have to be smart to be funny and some of the smartest funny people never swear at all.
As a young girl, swearing was forbidden in my house. I was told to “talk like a lady,” which even prohibited me from mildly offensive words like suck, crap, damn and fart.
When I was five I was spanked for saying a bad word that wasn’t an actual bad word and it wasn’t even the word I was trying to say. I was telling my older sister a story I’d learned in kindergarten about a farmer, but accidentally said farter. She tattled on me and I got swatted and sent to stand in the corner, where I silently cursed my sister using every bad word I knew.
A year later, the spanking incident infiltrated my love life and precipitated in me breaking it off with my first grade boyfriend, Jacob Sandstrom. I came home from school and told my mom it was over with Jacob because he didn’t talk nice. “Mom, he said the F word!” And then I whisper-spelled, “You know…F. A. R. T.”
Living in Brooklyn during my 20’s I learned to swear with a kind of ease and abandon that would make most sailors blush. I was like the kid who was never allowed to eat sugar and grew up to snort Pixy Stix for breakfast. I was all swears, all the time.
Nobody tells me to talk like a lady. I’m a grown-ass woman!
I wouldn’t say I’m now a swearing savant, but I’m pretty fucking good at it. As my own children are now growing into teenagers with swearing dreams of their own, I allow it to a point.
My golden rule for swearing is that there is a time and a place to use foul language.
If you accidentally slam your finger in the car door, let it rip! But if you go to the principal’s office at school for swearing, you’re on your own. I did not allow my kids to swear when they were little, but their transgressions were met with a raised eyebrow, rather than a belt.
I’m proud to say that over time and with some careful grooming, my children have learned to swear appropriately. The last thing I want to do is raise kids who sound like they’re awkwardly trying a swear word on for size. And I certainly don’t want them feel so repressed now that they go through an embarrassing period of binge-cursing like I did in my 20’s.
Like all art forms, swearing well takes practice. After all, a young artist does not start out using acrylics but begins with a box of crayons.
Still, I have my own beliefs about the age at which a child should be allowed to swear. Like a right of passage, you have to earn your swears.
To my point, I once knew a four-year old kid who was still breastfeeding, but would tell his mom to help him find his “fucking truck.” She thought it was just the funniest thing, but I’m guessing his pre-school teacher did not.
I suppose art appreciation is always subjective.
In recent years, swearing has become a very popular marketing tool, especially when it comes to selling books in the self-help genre. Titles like Get your Sh*t Together, You’re a Badass, Unfu*k Yourself, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck and the children’s book for parents, Go the F**k to Sleep, are best sellers, but then again so is the innocuous title The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, so who knows if the swears are a real selling point.
I recently had a client ask if he should bleep the swear words out of his podcast, worried it would offend his audience. I get his reticence because, like I said, there is a time and a place for swearing, but he’s a politician not a priest, so the swears are probably fine.
Some folks worry about offending their more prim audience members, but I say, if you are building a business that feels authentic to you and you happen to swear a bit in your every day life, you might as well swear a bit in your content too. More than likely, your tribe will be made up of those who have a similar swear tolerance to yourself.
I’m not the only one pondering the art of swearing. Netflix has devoted an entire series to the origin of common swear words, which has been met with high acclaim. I would be able to tell you more about it but since I can’t stand watching anything with Nicolas Cage in it, I’ll have to leave that rock unturned.
The real question here is what type of swear-artist are you?
Do you keep your swears tucked away like the good china, only to be used on special occasions? Or do you doodle your swears into every conversation like the colorfully stippled sky in Van Gogh's Starry Night?
Whatever your swear archetype may be, I hope you own it proudly.
While I’m no longer forced to “talk like a lady,” I trend in that direction most of the time, yet joyfully sprinkle my swear words in here and there to brighten up the place. Plus nothing goes better with my “serious face” than a hand picked expletive, to let my kids know when I mean business.
After all, there’s a time and a place for everything.
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