OK, so before we really get started here, let me post a warning. Yes I WILL be using a LOT of profanity in this post. If you are offended by common swear words, please stop reading this now.
As a Witch I choose to LIVE my path. Live the most authentic life I can. I took an amazing course recently on living your authentic life, within that course the instructor mentioned that in order to live an authentic life you should communicate clearly and without profanity. The philosophy of not using profanity can be found in most religions, as well as society in general. And while I choose to live an authentic life dedicated to the Divine, I do not believe that my using swear words changes shit. And, in fact, I have little care of my children using such words. Let me explain.
First of all I will admit I am a thirty-five year old mother of 3 who swears more than a convoy of truckers. However, I do control myself around other peoples children, (and my Grandma ;~P) as my goal in life not to offend those around me, and I am aware that others do not share my views. I do, however, think that the feelings around these words need to change.
Most profane words have been deemed so throughout history by the Christian church. Even the definition of the word profane (Latin: "in front of", "outside the temple") referred to items not belonging to the church. I am NOT Christian so why the fuck would I follow their declaration of what is or is not OK to say. In fact, if you look into the history of swear words many things that were the "fuck" of there day we would now consider silly. The worst in Shakespearean times were "Zounds" (short for Gods Wounds, referring to the crucifixion) and Gadzooks which meant God's hooks. Now these words can be found in comic books. The shit list of words that the church has is so long that most people do not realize how much they are actually swearing. I found this list:
So it appears we are all fucking swearing all the time anyway, might as well say fuck it and use the good words right?"Shinola, " "Shoot, " "Shucks, " "Sugar, " etc., all refer to the modern and vulgar barnyard reference to dung. "Freaking, " "Frickin, " "Fudging, " "Feck, " "Fig, " and other "F-words" obviously refer to the highly obscene and insulting "F-word"
- Begorrah = By God
- Bejabbers = By Jesus
- Bleeding heck = Bloody Hell
- Blimey = Blind me
- Blinking heck = Bloody Hell
- Bloody = By Our Lady
- By George = By God
- By golly = By God's body
- By gosh = By God
- By gum = By God
- By Jove = By God
- Cheese n' Rice = Jesus Christ
- Chrissakes = For Christ's sake
- Christmas = Christ
- Cor blimey = God blind me
- Crikey = Christ
- Criminy = Christ
- Cripes = Christ
- Crivvens = Christ defend us
- Dad gum = God d--n
- Dagnammit = Damnation, God d--n it
- Dagnabbit = Damnation, God d--n it
- Dang = Damn
- Dangnabbit = Damnation, God d--n it
- Dangnation = Damnation
- Darn = Damn
- Darnation = Damnation
- Doggone = God d--n or Dog on it
- Drat = God rot it
- Egad = A God
- For crying out loud = For Christ's sake
- Gadzooks = God's hooks (referring to the nails in Jesus on the cross)
- Gat Dangit = God d--n it
- G.D. (pronounced "jee dee") = God d--n
- Gee = Jesus or Jerusalem
- Gee whizz = Jesus
- Gee willikers = Jesus or Jerusalem
- Gorblimey = God blind me
- Good grief = Good God
- Goodness gracious = Good God
- Gosh = God
- Gosh darned = God d--ned
- Heck = Hell
- Jason Crisp = Jesus Christ
- Jebus = Jesus
- Jeepers Creepers = Jesus Christ
- Jeez = Jesus
- Jeezy Creezy = Jesus Christ
- Jehoshaphat = Jesus
- Jesus wept = Jesus Christ
- Jiminy Christmas = Jesus Christ
- Jiminy Cricket = Jesus Christ
- Judas Priest = Jesus Christ
- Jumping Jehoshaphat = Jumping Jesus
- My goodness = My God
- Sacré bleu = "sacred blue" = Sang de Dieu ("God's blood")
- Sam Hill = Hell
- Suffering succotash = Suffering Saviour
- Tarnation = Damnation
- Yumping Yiminy = Jumping Jesus
- Zounds or 'Swounds = God's wounds
Most swear words were religious in nature until the Victorian era when bodily fluids and functions made the list. Enter fuck, shit and piss.
Now as you can see from the words above, a lot of the words have fought their way into mainstream speech already. I do not think it is far off when the rest are heard on network T.V..
In my beliefs words Do have power. Everything has energy. But a lot of times society gives negative energy to words unnecessarily, which causes more problems than it solves. If I hurt myself, the energy of the word "ouch" does not make me feel any better, however, saying fuck or shit or damn does seem to help the pain. So I use them. I think giving these words the negative power makes kids want to use them more. Now as I said earlier, I do not have a problem with my kids swearing. I do however, at this point, not allow them to use the words around adults (including myself), this is to teach them to control what they say, so as to not get in trouble in school or later work. But people need to be honest and know that most kids are using these words anyway, my kids just know that I know. And they know that if they get hurt and yell fuck, I'm not going to ride their ass about it.
Society has not caught up to my way of thinking so I do control myself around others. I try not to say things like For Christs sake, Jesus Christ!, etc, around people who I know will be offended by that. Just because it is not my religious views does not give me the right to offend others. I would like others to respect my beliefs so I do the same for them.
Now all this being said there ARE words that are not allowed to be said by ANYONE in my family. These words are anything that attacks a person or group of people. Or a phrase that can be insulting to people. For instance this is a short list of what is not allowed:
N*gger (or any negative word referring to race)
R*tard (or any negative word referring to mental or physical disability)
Gay (when used as a derogatory statement such as "thats so gay")
Hate (you are not allowed to hate a person, hate is a powerful thing that can harm, therefore you can dislike a person or hate the behavior, but not the person).
I think you get the idea of what is not allowed.
So I swear..... a fucking lot. That does not mean I am ignorant, low class, less spiritual, or a bad person. It means I have decided to use the power of words in a positive way. I took the negative out of it. I honor myself, my family and the Divine everyday, and sometimes I do it using fuck, shit, damn, piss, and asshole. And in a few decades who knows, there may be a comic book where the superhero is able to give a good cock-punch to the bad guy.......Zounds!......... Holy Shit Balls Batman!!
Heehee love it!!!
ReplyDeleteFuck yeah! I had a conversation about this with my mom the other day. She thinks the word "cunt" is so bad, that it's absolutely unspeakable. I told her I use the word as often as I can (which isn't much, given that most of society really hates this word, too) because as a feminist, it deeply angers and offends me to think that this most sacred, erotic, and life-giving part of a woman's body is considered so vulgar that it can be used as a swear word. FUCK THAT.
ReplyDelete(Incidentally, did you know that the very word "vulgar" is from Latin for "common?" Meaning that what we think of as "vulgarity," for instance "swearing," is only "bad" because it was not done by the upper class or the nobility, only by the common people and peasants, who were considered lower-class citizens. "Cunt," for example, was widely in use in the Middle Ages, but fell out of favor over the years both because it was a "common" word and because it had bodily and sexual connotations, as described above. Isn't language fascinating?)
Great post! I feel similarly about 'bad' words - my kids are allowed to use them as well, in certain company. Overall, I think people get too worked up about words - they're just that - WORDS and they only have power if we allow them to.
ReplyDeleteAnd I say 'Holy shit balls, Batman!' OFTEN. It made me quite happy to see it written here :)
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