Foul Language

All our talk was peppered with the “F” word in the schoolyard in my early teens. That’s just the way it was and seemed perfectly normal, but it never occurred to me that grownups also used that kind of language. After all, we weren’t allowed to use it in their presence, so obviously they disapproved of it. I still clearly remember being shocked the first time I inadvertently heard the word “fcuk” come from the mouth of an adult.

I’ve not been a prolific swearer since I left school. It doesn’t come as naturally to me as it does to some, and I sometimes have to deliberately increase my output to fit in with the company I am in. I don’t feel comfortable using bad language in the presence of women, and that is because when I was young, men tended not to. I certainly would never go further than a “bloody” in front of children, and only then if unavoidable.

Things are different these days, if there isn’t a fcuk in your sentence it is considered grammatically incorrect. Grandchildren are ordered back into the fcuking house before they have to be come and fcuking got by their grandparents quite regularly in some neighbourhoods.

I’m not condemning or complaining; it might not suit my sensibilities but I recognise that times change and the significance of things alters. The only thing I would say against the increased prevalence of extreme language is that it has tended to decrease its potency; the exclamation “BASTARD!” on, say, just missing your bus, or hitting your thumb with a hammer, is nowhere near as cathartic as it used to be.