Too Much Damn Swearing

[Genuine Article]

Sidetrack about swearing:

I even have this sort of hierarchy of what words are okay around certain people - like no f-bombs when my mom is around, but any other words are fine to say in front of her (because she says them too).

But anytime you swear it's in front of your Heavenly Father, who doesn't use words like that.

My husband's taking some linguistics classes right now and he had a professor say that when he's around a specific group of friends he is required to greet them in a way that involves swearing (something along the lines of "Hey you effer, how the eff are you") and to not greet his friends in such a way would be considered inappropriate. We talk differently depending on who we're around, and what's an appropriate subject for one group may not be for another, but if you can keep your language clean, why wouldn't you? There's no great advantage to swearing. Plus, can you picture anyone in Heaven dropping the F-bomb? Well, maybe if an angel drops a harp on their foot or something.

[Whistler]

Sidetrack about swearing:

I even have this sort of hierarchy of what words are okay around certain people - like no f-bombs when my mom is around, but any other words are fine to say in front of her (because she says them too).

But anytime you swear it's in front of your Heavenly Father, who doesn't use words like that.

My husband's taking some linguistics classes right now and he had a professor say that when he's around a specific group of friends he is required to greet them in a way that involves swearing (something along the lines of "Hey you effer, how the eff are you") and to not greet his friends in such a way would be considered inappropriate. We talk differently depending on who we're around, and what's an appropriate subject for one group may not be for another, but if you can keep your language clean, why wouldn't you? There's no great advantage to swearing. Plus, can you picture anyone in Heaven dropping the F-bomb? Well, maybe if an angel drops a harp on their foot or something.

Also sidetrack: Is there ever a commandment against swearing? Other than taking the Lord's name in vain?

[Katya]

Also sidetrack: Is there ever a commandment against swearing? Other than taking the Lord's name in vain?

Just to get it out of the way, the "swear not at all" in Matthew 5:34 is referring to oaths, not expletives.

[Waldorf and Sauron]

Maybe James 1:26 is relevant:

If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.

[NerdGirl]

So, if you dismiss your emotional response as a spiritual confirmation, then you're dismissing the same response that felt like a confirmation of other Church principles, but if you accept your emotional response, you're accepting something that goes against Church principles. Is that correct?

Yeah, that sounds like a really good summary of the issue.

Also, to continue on the sidetrack about swearing:

But anytime you swear it's in front of your Heavenly Father, who doesn't use words like that.

This is exactly, I think, part of the problem. People can say things like that to me, and I can say things like to myself (and I'm not saying don't say things like that to me, if anything people should be calling me out on it much more often they do, and I welcome any additional ideas about why swearing is something I shouldn't be doing), and on an intellectual level it makes sense. But it's just not guilt-inducing or motivating me to stop at all. And I don't know why. Well, I do know part of the why - obviously the payoff outweighs the negative aspects of it for me. I know that swearing is unprofessional and that it makes some people uncomfortable, and those things are not good. So instead of not doing at all, I just don't do it in certain situations. But I like swearing, so I keep doing it because I don't have this fundamental conviction that it's NOT OKAY TO DO EVER like I do with other things. Yet my reading of the scriptures suggests that it's wrong, and I've actually prayed to feel bad about doing it, but it just doesn't happen. And that is what I don't get. I've been able to stop doing other things that I like doing, but that was because I knew they were wrong on more than just an intellectual level.

[Yarjka]

There's a lot of humor that depends on a well-placed swear to make it work--it's more about timing than shock in most cases. I think that God, with a perfect knowledge of language, appreciates the forcefulness of these words when used for the purpose of punctuating a phrase with the necessary degree of emotion.

The setting is important: I wouldn't swear at church, because it's a formal setting with particular expectations from the audience--a swear word would completely disrupt the established tone of the meeting. On the other hand, after midnight with a group of close friends sharing stories about the craziest things you've ever seen, where hyperbole and shock are not only expected but desired... my likelihood of swearing goes up quite a bit.

I don't swear all that much, but when I do it generally comes out quite naturally as the best word for relating a particular feeling or for emphasizing a particular point. I don't see any reason to feel bad about good communication.

[Rifka]

I have to disagree that swearing can be the appropriate way to add emphasis or express feelings. President Kimball said that "profanity is the effort of a feeble brain to express itself forcibly." If you search lds.org for "swearing" or "profanity," you will find oodles of articles and talks emphasizing the negative impacts of profanity. In a talk President Hinckley gave in October 1987 General Conference (he was first counselor in the First Presidency at the time), he said the following:

"Conversations I have had with school principals and students lead me to the same conclusion—that even among our young people, there is an evil and growing habit of profanity and the use of foul and filthy language.

I do not hesitate to say that it is wrong, seriously wrong, for any young man ordained to the priesthood of God to be guilty of such."

If it's seriously wrong for any priesthood holder to use profanity, I think it's safe to say it's wrong for women in the church to use profanity, too.

As I was searching for talks/articles about profanity, I came across a Question and Answer in the New Era that had a statement that stuck out to me. I know the Question and Answer section isn't necessarily doctrine, but I thought the statement was pretty poignant. The New Era writer who responded to the question wrote that "Our language reveals who we are, what we think, and what we believe." I know there are people out there who will disagree with me, but like it or not, people will perceive you differently if you swear. It will give a different impression of you to people.

I know that throwing quotes at you won't necessarily make you feel bad enough about swearing to stop doing it, NerdGirl. You have pointed out that you want to feel bad about it, and I think that's a sign that you actually do feel bad about it, however miniscule those feelings may be. If you didn't feel at least a tiny bit bad about it, you wouldn't be asking us all for help.

That said, I'd encourage you to focus your personal scripture study on profanity. (That just sounds weird, but you know what I mean.) Study in the scriptures and also the words of the prophets and general authorities on lds.org. There's a boatload of articles and talks on profanity on lds.org that you can study. I know you said you've prayed to feel bad about using profanity, but have you prayed to receive a testimony of the importance of not using profanity? Have you fasted about it? You might consider doing that for Fast Sunday this week.

I suggest that even if you haven't fully developed a testimony of why you shouldn't use profanity, keep trying to stop using it. John 7:17 says "If any man will do his will, he will know of the doctrine-- whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." Sometimes we have to act in faith before we receive a witness that something is God's will. Also, avoid watching/listening to/reading media that uses a lot of profanity. If you're taking in a lot of profanity daily, it's going to be hard to quit it, and to feel the Spirit telling you not to.

I hope that wasn't too preachy, NerdGirl. You asked for suggestions and so I gave you some. Hopefully even if it was a bit of an overload, you still were able to pull some useful tidbits out of it. I don't completely understand all the reasons why swearing is bad either, but I know that the prophets and apostles have counseled us not to, and I firmly believe that if you will follow their counsel, you will be able to gain a testimony of this principle.

Also, I am planning on responding to the other part of your question, about the difference between emotion and the Spirit. I've been really busy the last few days, and I wanted to think about it more before I answered it. Rest assured, though, my response is coming.

[Eirene]

Haha, should we splinter this off into another new thread about swearing? I agree with Rifka that profanity is not really a good thing, and doesn't do anything to make us more Christlike. However, I'm not convinced that every use of a conventional "swear word" is actually profane. Example: a friend and I have a running joke that involves calling a butt massage (which is apparently a thing) an ass-sage (to pronounce, say massage the fancy way, then take off the M). Maybe it's one of those "you have to be there" things, but it's really funny, especially from people who don't generally swear. And honestly, although it uses what many people consider a swear word, I have never felt that it was actually profane. It's not vulgar, it doesn't use the Lord's name in vain, it doesn't put anybody down, and it's not expressed as a result of anger or lack of control. It's simply for the joke.

I would personally only consider a word to be "profanity" if it met some of the negative criteria I just mentioned. I guess to me, the context that words are used in matters a lot more when determining profanity than the actual phonemes of the words themselves.

[Katya]

But I like swearing, so I keep doing it because I don't have this fundamental conviction that it's NOT OKAY TO DO EVER like I do with other things. Yet my reading of the scriptures suggests that it's wrong, and I've actually prayed to feel bad about doing it, but it just doesn't happen. And that is what I don't get. I've been able to stop doing other things that I like doing, but that was because I knew they were wrong on more than just an intellectual level.

I heard a piece on NPR the other week that had an interesting argument against swearing: Not swearing takes willpower, and exercising your willpower in that way helps you have better self-control in other areas, as well.

http://www.npr.org/2011/09/18/140516974 ... er-muscles

[Marduk]

Katya, that's a very similar point to the one that David Brooks made on NPR about Mormons and the Word of Wisdom.

But yeah, I guess I ought to split these topics. I didn't know so many people wanted to talk about swearing.

[Katya]

Katya, that's a very similar point to the one that David Brooks made on NPR about Mormons and the Word of Wisdom.

Interesting. Did he have research to back it up (as I gather the authors of the willpower book do) or did he just mean in terms of general asceticism?

[Marduk]

I would bet he did, but it was an aside to the actual conversation at hand (it was a political discussion, and they were talking about Romney.) Basically the idea was the same; it isn't as much that coffee, tea, and alcohol are categorically bad for you, but abstaining from them causes one to become a better person merely by the act of abstinence.

[Genuine Article]

There's a lot of humor that depends on a well-placed swear to make it work

I personally don't swear, but I have to say that I really appreciate well-placed swears in films or jokes. I heard a great Pope joke the other day that had me in stitches. Casual swearing, on the other hand, just makes you common, like people who spit in public. There is almost always a better way to express yourself.

On a fun note, a guy in our last ward at BYU studied Russian, and he actually did his thesis on the origin of Russian swear words, which meant getting up and giving a presentation with slides, each of which had a Russian obscenity written on it. He tastefully put in some %&*@# type characters to replace some letters, but it was still really obvious what the words were, and everyone in the room came over rather giggly.

[Portia]

When swearing is used for genuine comedic (Jon Stewart's "Go F*ck Yourself Now" gospel choir being a great example) or dramatic effect (Shakespeare ought not to have his "damneds" replaced with "dangeds"), I can live with it. When it is used to belittle and demean someone personally, I see the problem. I was playing online Dominion, one of my favorite things to do, and I was once endlessly insulted in extremely vulgar, graphic, sexual, over-the-top terms. For absolutely no reason! I was almost crying, when I should have been thinking about Embassies and Hunting Parties.

The euphemistic treadmill means that things we find to be rather graphic will hardly make our children blink. For proof, see "jerk" or "scum," both of which seem no worse than "scoundrel" or "rapscallion" to me, if less Rupert Psmith-y.

[Katya]

I came across this essay last Friday, which struck me as an interesting perspective on this conversation:

I’ll never forget the first time I heard my mother swear. I was in my thirties and had finally decided to talk to her about her second husband, whom she’d married when I was eleven, divorced two years later, and about whom, as if by a silent contract, we never spoke. “So tell me what was going on in that marriage,” I said to her. She bit her lip, paused, then said, “It was really shitty.” And that was it. This woman from whose mouth I’d never heard a “hell” or a “damn,” a woman who read her Daily Light devotional every morning, listened all day to Christian radio, and kept a pocket-size New Testament in her glove compartment, had now, deliberately and with great care, spoken a word I could never imagine escaping her lips. It was one of the great initiations in my life: with one word I suddenly understood how deeply something must have hurt her. And the tumblers of her life turned for me. Why? Because what she said was exactly the right wrong word. . . .

f we know nothing else as Mormons, it’s that we live and die by language—the right kind, the wrong kind, God’s or the devil’s, truth or falsehood, praise or sacrilege, the sacred and the profane. Saying the right thing at the right time is even the pinnacle event of our temple ceremony. Yet if we know nothing else as adult humans (thanks, Mom), it’s that sometimes one can only truly understand our species—animal and divine–when one kind of language bleeds into another. We sing in church, “In the quiet heart is hidden / sorrow that the eye can’t see.” Sometimes the only route to invisible sorrow is to turn up the volume.

[krebscout]

I don't think this is a new perspective or anything, but I think that breaking social conventions (and in my mind, swearing as a Latter-Day Saint is more or less breaking social conventions) generally has three roots: being oblivious to the rule, being cavalier about the rule, or making a stand against the rule. I have no ethical qualms with the first or the third, and the second depends on whether I feel cavalier about the rule as well.

I think what I'm trying to say is that I don't swear, I watch shows and read books that often have swearing and I don't mind, I don't much care if other people swear around consenting adults, and if you think the concept of having swear words in a language is stupid and you want to change the way we think about it, more power to you. There, that's my opinion. You're welcome.

[Emiliana]

I don't swear often, but when I do it's usually to make a very strong, very particular point, to an audience that I think won't be so distracted by the deviation from the social norm that it looses efficacy. For instance, I have this friend who, well, sometimes acts like a complete jackass. On occasion, I will tell him to quit acting like a jackass, and that's when he knows he's actually crossed the line.

[Tao]

I think what I'm trying to say is that I don't swear, I watch shows and read books that often have swearing and I don't mind, I don't much care if other people swear around consenting adults, and if you think the concept of having swear words in a language is stupid and you want to change the way we think about it, more power to you. There, that's my opinion. You're welcome.

I'm pretty much with krebscout on this one: I don't believe I've come across a situation where my vocabulary was insufficient and silence wasn't preferred.

I think I can see where the person Katya quoted is coming from, but I'm not so sure I can agree fully. While not swearing generally makes the times you do hit harder, but to take it to the extreme I don't think I can see Christ swearing about his experience in Gethsemane (other than, perhaps; "it was Hell" but that's more literal methinks.)

[Unit of Energy]

I don't swear ever. I have on occasion said every swear word I know, but those were in semi academic conversations with my linguistics roommate.
However there was a situation a couple weeks ago when the word that rhymes with witchy was the best word for the situations. Witchy and petty just weren't quite the right fit.
and that did lead to another academic discussion.

[Emiliana]

I sent a fifth grader to the office yesterday for saying the "f-word" in class. I don't think I knew that word when I was in fifth grade.