Pardon My French


I've never met anyone who has honestly and truthfully been shocked by swearing, they're only shocked on behalf of other people. Well that's just fucking preposterous! The person who gets shocked by profanity is often the sort of twee person who thinks swearing is in any way a sign of a lack of education. These are the same people who will say that profanity "simply isn't necessary". Necessary? It's not necessary to put cushions on a sofa, it's not necessary to have coloured socks, it's not necessary to put shoes on your feet. The things that are not necessary are what makes life a bit more interesting.

Should an alien happen to be looking down on this planet and inspecting how us humans live our lives I'm sure they would be focusing on how people are abused, tortured and killed each day. Why would an extra terrestrial care if we used, as some say, "colourful language"?

I have a fondness for curse words and I like to paint my lexicon with all manner of different expletives. I am not alone in my love of cursing, the average Briton is said to swear fourteen times a day and that about 0.7% of the words a person uses in the course of a day are swear words. There is a whole myriad of social purposes for using obscenity, some nasty and some nice. Exclaiming the word "fuck!" after hitting one's finger with a hammer (be it accidentally or, for whatever reason, purposefully) has actually been shown to be cathartic.

My point is that swearing is worthwhile and prudes need to get the fuck over it. I know using profanity is unbecoming to some and that there are times when swearing really is not appropriate. Nevertheless, I firmly believe that certain profane utterances just communicate a message that cannot be communicated with the same energy, the same fire, or the same intensity when people try to use a less-“offensive” term.

I'm not really one for name calling or insults, I even managed to resist retaliation when so-called "comedian" Alex Brooker referred to me as a cunt on Twitter for simply pointing out that he wasn't funny (a comment that I stand by). However, when one does want to add a little sting to an insult, there’s probably going to be some kind of profane utterance in there. Non-profanity just doesn't add the same kick. It's the same when telling an anecdote; if I was to tell a story where I said of a person in the tale "he was a massive twat" then you'd know what kind of person I was talking about. Ultimately, profanity is stronger than the normal words, so to speak, in terms of the kind of power one’s words can have.

I wouldn't, however, say I'm oblivious to social morays and norms about profanity – I choose when to follow and when to disobey at my own peril and at my discretion. While I don’t like offending people, I do like to express myself openly. I could say that I'm perturbed, or I could tell you that I'm fucking angry. They both mean near enough the same thing, but there’s a level of strength in the phrase “fucking angry” that isn't there with the word “perturbed”. That’s generally how I use my profanity.

So please do pardon my French, or va te faire foutre.
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