Profanity 101

I really like what Mitch had to sat here.

Mitch Teemley

(Rate R for language)

No, I’m not going to teach you how to cuss. My guess is you already know how. When I was in my early 20s, I was proud of my liberal use of profanity. It was what set me apart from the uptight older generation (i.e. my parents). They needed to “get over it.” Words were just words.

Or were they?

For good or for bad, profanity has reached a new level of cultural acceptance. The movie Midnight Cowboy received an X-rating when it was released a few decades ago. Not because of graphic sex or violence, but because it used the f-word. Once. Today the film regularly plays on daytime television—with no restrictions.

What is profanity. And why does it matter? Broadly, it can be broken into two categories:

1. Cursing (cussing, swearing), in the traditional sense, is to invoke a curse on another, usually in the name…

View original post 475 more words