Swearing is one of my most irritating and embarrassing habits. Over the years I have become increasingly annoyed with my inability to control the profanities that escape from my potty mouth.There are times when I have complete control but occasionally, even then, the odd swear word is uttered. And I seem to be getting worse.
I have asked myself why and I think I have the answer: the world is becoming an insane place to live.
At work, I am becoming increasingly frustrated (for reasons that I will not go into here), so my language deteriorates rapidly as the day progresses. I arrive home after a hard day’s work, switch on the TV set and watch the news. Within two minutes I am yelling at the TV because of injustice and stupidity in the world.
Unfortunately there is nothing I can do to influence the world at large. I would love to build a space ship that can accommodate one million humans and then fill it with all of those people in the world who make me swear, before launching it on a one way trip to Alpha Centauri. I could make a list of my targets here but I think that I would be posting until doomsday. Of course, all of this means that my language deteriorates rapidly when these people appear on my TV screen, particularly when they open their mouths.
I do usually apologise if I discharge an expletive into the conversation, especially when there are ladies present. Most dismiss my faux pas but occasionally the odd person will take exception to my foul and abusive language, which is a little hypocritical in some cases, given that these people have been known to swear themselves.
I’m sure that there are people out there who hate swearing and very rarely curse. However, in my experience, the vast majority are as bad if not worse than me. If that’s the case, then why is the use of swear words so universally frowned upon?
There are one or two words that I never use (I won’t mention them here) but I don’t know why. These are regarded as offensive and can be replaced with other supposedly benign words and phrases that mean the same thing.
For example, the almost ubiquitous “F*** off” could theoretically be replaced by the phrase “Go and make love to somebody – anybody”.
Is that offensive? If somebody said that to me I would probably laugh at them (rather than telling them to “F*** off” back). For some reason the benign phrase has virtually no effect. Why is that?
Perhaps that’s how I should try to eliminate swear words from my vocabulary. Perhaps instead of saying “You f****** d*******” I should say “You are being rather obnoxious”. Instead of telling somebody to “p*** off” perhaps I could say “Why don’t you pay a visit to the toilet?”
Is there scope for that do you think? Or will they just think I’m being weird?
Maybe I’ll try it next time I see somebody like Jeremy Kyle on the TV:
“You resemble a human bottom and you deserve nothing but utter contempt. You look as if you need to answer call of nature, so why don’t you leave the stage really quickly and stay there for the duration of the show? I never want to see you on my screen again, so please search for somebody to make love to when you have finished your business on the toilet.”
Mmm – doesn’t have the right ring to it, does it?
