Posted on 04/17/2013 7:21:48 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
* 0.7% of all English spoken language is swearing
* Many children learn swear words before the alphabet
* Bad language dates to Romans and Anglo-Saxons
Most children learn how to swear before they even know the alphabet, according to a new book that examines bad language and its origins.
English speakers also use a curse word on average once in every 140 words, roughly the same proportion as the first person plural pronouns such as ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our.’
The surprising preponderance of swearing in everyday language probably explains why the majority of children know at least one obscene word by the age of two, says language expert Dr. Mellissa Mohr, from Stanford University in California.
It really ‘kicks off’, she adds, around the ages of three and four.
She claims that over an average day around 0.7 per cent of English language consists of swear words.
In her new book, ‘Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing,’ Dr. Mohr claims the upper classes are just as likely to turn the air blue as less educated working class people.
The group least likely to use swear words, says the researcher, is the middle class.
‘This goes back to the Victorian era idea that you get control over your language and your deportment, which indicates that you are a proper, good person and this is a sign of your morality and awareness of social rules,' she said.
‘Aristocrats have a secure position in society, so they can say whatever they want — and may even make a show of doing so,’ she adds.
Dr. Mohr said her book sets out to correct some misconceptions people have about swearing.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I did not hear any profanity until I was 11 or so. But I didn’t dare to use it at home! Blasphemy on the other hand, I picked up when I was maybe 3 from listening to our neighbor rant at the TV. He was pathologically incapable of forming a sentence without inserting a “GD” or a “JC”. A very sound spanking cured me for life.
A wise man once told me “profanity is the crutch of the inarticulate mother#@&er.”
One of my daughters didn’t know what the F word was until high school. She does have speech problems, but she just did n’t hear us at home using that kind of language.
****‘This goes back to the Victorian era idea that you get control over your language and your deportment, which indicates that you are a proper, good person and this is a sign of your morality and awareness of social rules,’ she said. ***
Back in the early 1960s anyone using coarse language in certain social gatherings like a dance would be taken out back and “taught” some manners.
No one yelled “bull s#!t while at a C&W dance as they started doing back in the 1970s.
By the mid 1960s the college radicals began to do all they could to debase the English language and make vulgarity common.
Before 1968, movies were very safe for kids, even adult oriented plots were safe. Then after the murder of Bobby Kennedy, the movie industry said they would “police themselves”. What came out was the most violent, vile language movies ever made.
It is worse today which is why I rarely go to movies, or even watch them on pay TV.
If a person came into my house and used that type of language they would be shown the door. So why should I allow a movie in my home that does the same?
Well, they do if they watch American television.
No (eyes rolls )
My father was the same way, an old WW II vet and career military man, he could let out a string of profanity that would make a bartender blush. I remember him to this day working on the old car with a Cigarette hanging out of his mouth, cussing to high heavens. I've been told that shortly after I learned to talk I could imitate one of his profane rants to a "t". He thought it was hilarious...until I started doing it out in public... I guess between that and mom's complaining, it finally convinced him to stop cussing...or at least try to keep it PG rated, which he was pretty good at, unless he was really angry.
My friend (a preacher) told us his little boy came home from his first day at school. He asked HIS MOTHER “Mom, what does “M**********r mean?”
His mom cried to her husband...”Of all cuss words, Why did it have to be THAT word!”
True
College Professor Arrested Amid Profanity-Laced Rant Against Pro-Life Students’ Display
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3008851/posts
My mom called it a lack of vocabulary.
%#**&## Yes, I can swear, too. (But I try not to. We have a swearing jar and we put in $1 in it for every swear. Yes even me and wife does, too.)
I tell my kids the same, (using slightly different words).
Ms. Martin??
I try not to use bad language, but sometimes one just slips out. Like when Zero says or does something jarringly stupid, or when hearing terrible news like from Boston on Monday.
That’s because they are pissed about something.
Does cursing include damn and hell? Does context rule? I remember as a small boy I used to pronounce helicopter HEE-LE-O-COPTER, because hell was a “bad” word!
It would be nice if freerepublic was socially conservative enough to not accept cussing, especially to the extent that it is done here.
Response: From what I have seen and heard, in say restaurants, over the airwaves(penis and testicles being local favorites)movies and television it is fair to state that our society has coarsened.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.