That fucking crime scene investigation from The Wire (NSFW).

Hey, that's kind of interesting. I was actually thinking about posting about this, because I've been hyperconscious of how often I now hear "fuck" in ordinary conversation in public places. This awareness coincided with my move to Massachusetts, and I'm not sure whether it's just more common here (believable hypothesis) or whether there's just been an overall increase in the use of the word. I'm no prude about profanity, but it's harsh on the ears, especially when you're just lying on the beach reading or in the grocery store or whatever.

I'm used the word being associated with anger or irritation, and it's short and clear and punctuates the air even when everything else sounds muttery - so it sort of tunes up my 'alert! problem happening!' antenna... yet there's usually no problem, so I end up just dealing with the brief adrenaline spikes that the word causes.

The only movie from the 70s is Blue Collar (1978), a drama starring Richard Pryor and Harvey Keitel and Paul Schrader's directorial debut. Keitel seems to be in a lot of these fucking movies.

So does someone sit there and watch each movie with a little hand clicker hitting the button on each "fuck"?

More likely they get the subtitles from the DVD with ripping software, then just do a word-count on the text.

Ahh, hadn't thought of that.

In the south, saying the F word in public will still get you a smack down from your elders, parents of small children, or large angry men whose mommas raised them right.

See, I love the word. I love ALL words. They all have their time and place, and I totally agree that out in public, well that's not really the place for language that can shock or offend the sensibilities of others.

But, man, I sure do like to use it in the RIGHT place :-)

Though my online language tends toward the maiden-auntly (oh my! mercy! oh my stars and whiskers!), in person and among close friends I deploy the f-bomb with surprising regularity.

I've become self-conscious about it lately, and I think I'll stop for a while and see how I like it. It's been like the Big Fuckin' Lebowski over here lately.

Oh yeah, I like it too. In fact, it kinda makes me mad to hear it used by so many rude and stupid people who are deploying it poorly, because it makes me never want to use the word again myself.

I hate facebook because it's a there-and-gone ephemeral medium, but I went ahead and dug up this comment I made on a friend's post:

I'm convinced that swearing hangs on because A) it's a useful part of speech, B) legacy, but also C) to teach children about "register". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_(sociolinguistics)

I think modern parents by and large realize that there's nothing wrong with the words themselves as there is the context in which they're said. It's not like kids don't learn these words; they're almost guaranteed to by the nature of their forbidden-ness. I think that that's exactly the point, though; for kids to learn these words, but also to learn when NOT to use them. The only people kids are going to get in trouble for swearing in front of already know the words; it's not about forbidding the knowledge and spread of them. But in the same sense that it can be considered "low," "common," or "vulgar" (and remember the origin of the word "vulgar"; it was the speech of the common person not educated in formal Latin), it's to teach children that how you speak is as important as what you speak. That one should speak to members of a social class one aspires to in the manner of that social class.

Miko said:

I'm no prude about profanity, but it's harsh on the ears, especially when you're just lying on the beach reading or in the grocery store or whatever.

I'd argue that does make you a prude, at least a moderate prude. In that you're arguing for moderation.

I think about this from time to time, because I'm still planning to have kids. I often ask myself: "What the fuck do I care if my kids swear?" Am I making it less attractive if I don't prohibit it? Am I denying my kids some kind of normal boundaries or common developmental experience? It's a heady question, because there's no going back.

I'm actually interested to hear from MeCha parents on this.

I DO think it's a time and place thing. And, I'm 100% sure my girls have heard me swear. But...I certainly do NOT swear at them. And I am pretty careful about the context in which they may hear me swear. I wish I could think of examples, but...mainly I try to teach them that language is a tool, and that some words are harsher than others, and shouldn't be used carelessly.

Also, I think this falls under my fundamental approach around respect. I've always tried to treat them with respect, and expect them to treat me the same, and each other. So...if we're being respectful of other people, then...we likely don't swear at them, or in a way that makes them uncomfortable around them. I dunno if that makes any sense. Suffice it to say...if I heard my girls swearing on occasion, I doubt it would bother me much. If they were doing it gracelessly, though, maybe it would.

Does that make sense?

It makes sense to me (a non-parent), and I don't swear around young people, in large part because I don't want to erode whatever lesson their parents have been trying to establish about so-called strong language. That's part of the reason I'm such an "OH MY GOODNESS" machine; it started with the birth of my first niece and has kept going ever since. Only in the last year or two has the effing this and effing that crept back in.

But I think there's a big difference between "swearing at" and "swearing around," and swearing around is what I do with my closer adult friends. I'd never dissected it before, but on those occasions when I do swear prolifically, it's either self-directed ("I burned the ____ing sauce, what a ____ing screw-up") or directed outward ("The ____ing hotel lost the ____ing reservations!") I rarely direct it at someone in the room who isn't me.

Related: this is a pretty funny essay about the trouble CBS is having, figuring out how to promote a show called "Shit My Dad Says," and the contortions some media will go to to "mask" cuss words.

That's really a dividing line between print and online media, isn't it? Salon can say 'shit' but Time can't. I was amused by this review of a Wilco concert that I went to in the Spring. The reviewer is forced to quote Jeff Tweedy this way:

"That song makes me wonder why people always talk about Wilco losing their edge. We've always been [sissies]."

when he'd actually said "pussies". I assume that there'd be a firestorm of letters to the editor and subscription cancellations if he hadn't censured the quote.

From BP's link:

No, you're the reason nobody ever asks, What the "make love"?

To be fair, I love Something Awful's automated censoring for non-members. So I will occasionally say, "What the gently caress?" (Also great is "rear end in a tophat" for asshat.)

Wow. Substituting "sissies" for "pussies" there really mangles a pretty good line. Did the editor not realize that "sissy" and "pussy" have differing connotations? I think "wimps" probably would have worked better here.

I'd argue that does make you a prude, at least a moderate prude. In that you're arguing for moderation.

Prude doesn't mean in favor of moderation - it means an excess of propriety, going beyond a sense of moderation that meets general norms. I don't object to swear words - I use them. But I do subscribe to a set of norms that expect their use in context, not indiscriminately.

While profanity will always be with us, and has a definite linguistic role that, if not filled by these words, would be filled by others, excessive conversational profanity is definitely associated in the minds of many - I'd guess, the majority - with certain negative values: intentional disrespect, rudeness, threat of violence or domination, interest in projecting dangerousness or toughness, inarticulateness, frustration, hot anger, ignorance, and, well, rejection of prevailing social norms. I wouldn't object if one of my kids dropped a few colorful words here and there, like I do. Their power derives from the negative associations. But I do (and have) object when kids begin strewing the words through their every utterance, as is the case where I live right now. The people I'm overhearing want to communicate and emphasize the negative associations as markers of identity. They want to appear rude, mean, and disrespectful. In other words, they aren't using them like Tabasco; they're using them like ketchup.

It's hard for me to describe, but come over on a Friday night, and I'll take you for a walk, and you'll hear it.

I was amused by this review of a Wilco concert

It is pretty hilarious to encounter euphemisms in literature written for an adult audience. I was reading this piece in the NYT Mag a couple weekends ago, and just so embarrassed at the contortions the writer was going through in trying to describe the subject without using expletives - things like:

a loud, excited voice yelled into a mic a brief introduction — so brief the longest part of it was the polysyllabic participle between the words “Big” and “Freedia.”

in a signature dance whose name is sometimes helpfully shortened to “p-popping.”

led them in a chant that made “Katrina” and “FEMA” into rhyming objects of the same obscene verb.

You guys have to understand the true value of parents not swearing (not using the F-bomb, most especially) around their children: When the children get old enough, as in no-doubt-totally-F-ing-adult, and they use the word(s) at some point with their parent(s), acting all casual like (and they're like 30-something, see?), and then, just a little later on, the parent also uses it, acting all casual-like, and then everyone is all casually F-ing this, and F-ing that... well that's a certain bonding you don't find everyday, and everyone is all chortling inside and secretly tickled to death.

But it doesn't work if you were already F-bombing the nest before the baby birds became fucking fledglings.

well that's a certain bonding you don't find everyday, and everyone is all chortling inside and secretly tickled to death.

My high-school boyfriend E., who came from a household where everyone swore liberally, was always on his best behavior around my parents. One evening when we were in our twenties and visiting my parents, we had a spirited chat with my dad about some inconsequential topic, and I said something like "Oh, THAT's fucking likely!" We all chortled and E. and I headed out.

As we walked out the front door, he leaned in to me and whispered out of the corner of his mouth, "You said 'FUCK'! To your DAD!" He was so appalled and excited!

I grew up in a family that didn't hold back language-wise. But, of course, it was "do as I say" not "say as I do". Younger people swearing became acceptable at some undefined age. I was 14 or so the first time I swore in front of my mum. I said "shit" at something, not quite under my breath. She didn't look up from what she was doing, just smiled and shook her head. Even so, I didn't make it a habit until I was at least 18.

The mister is appalled at the language used around kids in my family. And as far as I know, he never swore around his parents.

There have been a couple times in my life I became aware that I was swearing willy-nilly and made a conscious choice to stop. Plus saying dagnabbit is funner and funnier than dammit!

My mom once told me never to use the word "thingamajiggy" because it sounded offensive to her ears. She said it sounded..disgusting/obscene. She's not a native English speaker, but it doesn't map to anything offensive in Mandarin. I still don't know what her problem was with it. Are there words in your families that are/were forbidden just because they sound weird?

Mm, and related to the post: I love the word fuck. It's gloriously obscene and versatile. I used to pick it any time we had a movie swear word drinking game--you know, drink every time someone says a particular phrase? The only time I have ever blacked out from drinking was when we were watching Reservoir Dogs and I picked my favorite word. 250-299 uses...should have checked Wikipedia first.

In the '80s, I briefly played with the idea of stand-up comedy, doing "open mike night" at a nice new club in West L.A. owned by a comedy club veteran. Unlike most of the would-be stand-ups who worked every week on polishing and perfecting a "golden five-minutes", I, totally unsure of how to define myself comedicly, put together a different 'act' every week, usually doing the taboo act of bringing notecards on stage with me to refer to because writing the stuff was one thing but memorizing it was too much trouble.

One week, in real life, a friend of mine was complaining about his girlfriend, moaning "she even asked me, 'when are you going to learn how to fuck?!?'". I, seeing a comedic opportunity, said "I would have immediately volunteered for a semester of intensive tutoring," we both laughed and I decided to use the semi-fictional exchange as the basis for a relationship-and-sex-focused routine. When I did the gag (making it my own experience and adding tag-on lines about taking notes, testing, pop quizzes and teacher evaluations), it got moderate laughs, almost enough to earn a place in my comedy Greatest Hits. But afterward, the owner (who, I must point out, was a respected person in the L.A. comedy club universe) took me aside and told me of his concerns about my use of the word "fuck". I said, "waitaminute, I've heard comics on open mike night use it a lot more than I did!" and he replied "yes, but they used it an interjection. You used it as a verb." (Verb. It's what you do.) After that, I lost much of my enthusiasm about doing stand-up comedy. I'm sorry, but "when are you going to learn how to make love" just isn't funny and doesn't even work as a straight line.

oneswellfoop: Bob Eubanks made pretty big bank for many a year with the tidy little phrase "make whoopie", and he was known as the Lenny Bruce of game show hosts.
(Or was it the Bruce Vilanch?)