Oh Shirt! My Ash has been dammed by a firetruck and a female dog.

by Nic Olson

For much too long have I avoided this subject. Probably because 90% of the people that read this blog are over the age of forty. The other ten percent are unpopular young adults. Like me.

I grew up/am growing up in a family that doesn’t use angry cursing language worse than ‘Rats!’ and ‘Phooey!’. One time I thought my dad swore, but I was only 8 years old and I thought ‘wuss’ was considered cussing. Apparently not. Since I am the age of the majority and I’m old enough to start my own family(…..) I figure I’m old enough to have my own stance on these words that have been inappropriately deemed inappropriate by our society.

For numerous reasons, I just don’t understand the taboo that is the swear. If you are basing your decisions on the Bible (and God knows you should. Get it?) then the only swears you should not use are the ones using ‘the Lords name in vain’. I don’t think there is a verse in Deuteronomy that lists all the dirtiest English words that can’t be in a PG movie. Most of the words considered rude were ones openly used in the King James Version of the Bible. And even in songs sung in the church….. (omg!)

I don’t know any other languages. I know about four phrases in French. (C’est la but! = It’s a goal!) and a few phrases in Mizo (Ting pui edo em? = Would you like some tea?) and like four words in Greek, but from my very limited experience, English is a wordy language. So many words for so many things, and my vocabulary obviously doesn’t surpass much besides the dreaded descriptive English words like ‘beautiful’ and ‘said’. I do know that there is like nine words for any single thing you want to describe. Out of those nine, one usually works the best. Why then, should we go throw out five or six of our best and most descriptive words in the language because some 17th Century English monk said that his porridge tasted like horse-feces and the Pope didn’t like it and cut off his head?

Tomorrow, boldly say a swear to yourself and then quietly laugh about it alone. Read a swear graffiti-ed on the wall, and give it a thumbs up. Flip yourself off in the mirror, then flex your pecs.

I went through this whole blog without even throwing in a swear. I did this because I know lots of people don’t appreciate these words, without even understanding why.
All the best movies out there have about nine thousand F-bombs. Does that make it bad writing? Martin Scorsese would say no.
Or maybe he’d say F no.