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Has anyone else decided not to swear? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by voytek709@lemmy.ca to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I used to swear a lot. I decided to not swear at all (except for possibly mild swears), instead replacing most swears with minced oaths.

My family is Christian and I would get yelled at for swearing even if it just slipped out. So far, I don’t swear unless I’m feeling a strong emotion or acting impulsively, but I’ll usually say things like “F/eff” or “fudge” instead of the F-word.

I like to be “creative”, so my go-tos are usually “Go fudge yourself”, or “What the cluck?”

I might say “mother lover” instead of MF

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[–] apotheotic@beehaw.org 1 points 6 hours ago

I've considered removing or at least reducing swearing in my common language usage, but I don't consider it enough to just replace swearing with placeholder words. "What the fudge" doesn't work, in my mind, because it is still clear to everybody what my brain was trying to say before my resolution not to swear intervened. "What on earth are you talking about?" Much better.

I kind of realised through running that through to its end that what my issue was, with swearing, was lazy use of language. So I still swear, but I try not to lean on the words as crutches.

Where this puts me, language usage-wise, is in a position where I'm using swearing as a tool to accentuate my meaning or express emotion succinctly, since I don't swear as often it carries more weight.

For instance, my high school bully was a reprehensible human being but Donald Trump is a worthless fucking cunt.