Chiron

Profanity indeed is rooted in religion: the word literally means "before the temple," i.e. something that you've gotta leave outside (words that refer to sexual or excretory functions and aren't clinical terms).

Side note: profane also means "secular," for the same reason it means vulgar. It actually makes more sense for it to mean secular than to mean vulgar, because there isn't exactly a lot of proof that a god dislikes vulgarity in its temple.

Anyway, here are some alternatives to vulgarity (for use when in the company of virgin ears) that I like:
"Aw, FSCK!"
"What the kiwi d'you mean by that?"
"What the heterosexual are you talking about?" (best with homophobes)
"Phoque!" (as in: "Pardon my French, but seal!")
"Why, you dirty little fibula!"
"What the territory!?" (the conductor of a pit orchestra I was in misread the text at the end of Rock Island)

Enjoy 'em!
-Chiron

lpetrich

For my part, I like thinking of cute alterations to "bullshit": bull feces, bull excrement, bull doo-doo, bullpoop, male-bovine excrement, etc.

openeyes

My aunt, the ex-nun, used to use "shoot" all the time.

(Maybe she still does, just don't see her very often.)

Opera Nut

I get bored with regular cussing. I like to cuss in furrin languages or weird new combinations. Makes it interesting.

Silent Acorns

I've been interested in this ever since an incident I had when I was in Grade 7.

A friend and I were chasing each other around the halls at school. At one point I turned a corner to find a teacher standing right in front of me. I barely managed to stop without running into her. "Jesus!", I said in shock.

"Don't swear!", she replied.

All I could think at the moment was, "how is 'Jesus' a swear"?

I now understand that this 'Jesus' thing is all a result of "do not use the LORD's name in vain", but I've always found it odd that it's OK to say "shoot", "darn", "Judas Priest", "gadzooks", "heck", etc.

The best explanation I can think of is that the reason the "real" words are bad and the "fake" words are OK is all due to the concept of the "curse".

For most of human history, cursing another person has been taboo because it was believed that certain words had the power to harm others (even if such harm was not intended). For various cultural reasons numerous words have been added to the list of curse words. People have always had a tendency, however, to utter certain words in moments of exasperation. To avoid uttering the powerful and dangerous curse words they trained themselves to utter the similar sounding but impotent fakes. Thus "shoot", "fick", etc.

It's really quite easy to train yourself to do this. When I was in high school, as a bit of a joke, I managed to train myself to say "shi'ite" instead "shit". I've since gotten out of that habit and simply say "shite".

Anyways, that's my theory.

Opera Nut

My daughter, being a high school student in America, says "Bugger off" and "wanker" just to baffle the little barsteds.

Tenek

Methinks it has to do with the culture around the times.

I'm perfectly fine using "Jesus Christ!" as profanity. Same context as "fuck!". But the latter is more cared for. Why? Here's the theory - English nobility. Blue-bloods. Such things as bodily functions would be extremely *improper* for the upper class to comment upon. So the shock words are related to the body. Fuck, shit, piss, cunt, etc.

Now try French. Sex is much less of a problem. Hell, almost every book I read in high school French class had sex in it. Sometimes for no particular reason. It's no big deal. But religion? Oh, no you don't, not in staunchly Catholic France. Reminds me of a joke...

"These days, in Québec, they're considering changing all the stop signs... instead of "Stop" or "Arrêt" it'll be "WWT" - Whoa... whoa... Tabernac."

An English equivalent would be along the lines of "Whoa... whoa... shit", implying that the drivers are lousy. But as you might guess from "Tabernac", the actual profanity is religious. Catholicism is more ingrained, so the rebellion is in the church, not the bedroom.

As for the preservation of profanity, this has to do with strict discipline in upbringing. Useless tradition, to be more exact. If nobody cared what the word was so long as the meaning wasn't malevolent, there wouldn't be profanity at all. Dropping the F-word when I burn my arm is much better than referring to people with darker skin than I as "African-Americans" with a sneering tone of voice. (Why do I always end up using the racism example. :P )

Sabine Grant

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tenek
[B]Methinks it has to do with the culture around the times.



Now try French. Sex is much less of a problem. Hell, almost every book I read in high school French class had sex in it. Sometimes for no particular reason. It's no big deal. But religion? Oh, no you don't, not in staunchly Catholic France. Reminds me of a joke..


Bonjour Tenek... I do not know how long you may have lived in my country to draw general conclusions such as " staunchly catholic France". For the record, most catholic french are not devoted practising catholics and the second major religion in France is islam. Our politicians do not display religion in their office and make a point to keep church and state separated. Our schools are extremely secular. A few years ago, that secular trend was reinforced by preventing an islamic female student to wear a veil in school.
The fact that we have a catholic influence in our celebrations such as our calendar celebrating a patron saint name for each day has nothing to do with religious conviction. It is only a fun tradition and an other opportunity to pop a bottle of champagne
Actualy we have plenty of religious notions in our way of cussing. Who has not heard the " bon sang de Bon Dieu!" or " Marie mere de Dieu!" We even like to humour saints such as in " comme disait St Augustin, a chacun son colombin" to express " mind your own business" ( would translate as " as St Augustine would say, to each his own shit") I think we like the rhyming effect between Augustin and Colombin.

Tenek

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Sabine Grant
[B]I'm not talking about that that is, I'm talking about that that *was*. I'm sure back pre-Revolution religion was much more important. Look at all the fur flying over the Hugenots.

Sabine Grant

Jamie-L... boujour! I like your idea to form our own expressions. Having access to a couple of foreign languages, I usualy use idioms from one language to the other to express frustrations.
It often results in making the hearer laugh and tends to relax the atmosphere rather than be percieved as offensive.

My way to express to someone that I really do not care or basicaly " leave me alone or bug off" or anything that may come to your mind, is to translate my favourite southern french expression largely used around the harbor of Marseille... " je m'en bat l'oeil et le flanc gauche avec la queue d'une sardine"... " I beat my eye and left flank with a sardine's tail". It is guaranteed the make the other person laugh and also back down. Double positive effect.
French cussing can be very personal and targeting an individual or group of individuals... for example " cretin". Cretinism is a genetical disorder often found in the French Alpes....it would be the equivalent to say " down syndrom" as a mode of cussing and IMO some terms become offensive as they demean the people they represent and make them " villains".
I recently corrected my younger daughter as she uses the expression " it is so gay" or " it is so retard" when commenting about anything. IMO it is not appropriate.

As a christian I do not jump on the case of anyone who exclaims " Jesus Christ" and I even chuckle at " holy jumping Jesus". However if the name is coupled with a sexualy explicit term, I still will not say anything but I grieve it. It would never come to my mind to exclaim " f... Buddah or Allah" or any religious notion as I am well aware that I am including a taboo notion to a name which evoques something cherished by many people.

To me it would be no different than exclaiming in someone's presence " your f... mother ".

I think it is important to show a degree of respect for what is dear and cherished by other people.