Quote dum-dum="dum-dum"I swear alot in conversation when I'm "with the boys" but when typing I feel you have the time to think before you type (so to speak) and be that little bit more pleasant. Wormy will vouch for my hatred of [i=#000040cursing (bit American that)[/i.'"
Do you mean "cussing"? Dreadful Americanism. Cursing, meaning profanity or swearing, is very old English. "Swearing" in this context is relatively new English, formerly meaning an oath in front of God.
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You're right, dum-dum, I love the English language and see no wrong in using old words to describe their original meaning. Although I do swear on occasion, I don't like to hear swear words used continuously, outside of their true context. Particularly in front of children, who don't have the maturity to understand the origins and therefore think it is mandatory for a smattering of Fs and Bs in every sentence used instead of adjectives or adverbs.
More dreadful than swearing, though, in my opinion, is the izing of our English language by the middle classes, because they can't cope with life. They are offended by the facts that life involves everyone having a bum hole, using it to excrete solids, people having sex for pleasure and to produce children, and so unilaterally removing the nouns and verbs originally associated with these activities.
It's not just this, though. Soon anything that had even a slightly unhygenic air to it became outlawed. French words were used as substitutes because they sounded prettier:
Napkins - Serviettes
What - Pardon
Pudding - Dessert
Scent - Perfume
Sick - Vomit/Ill
Bog/Loo - Toilet
Graveyard - Cemetery
False Teeth - Dentures
All the words on the right are far more offensive to me than bugger being used to mean one who commits buggery.
