On Profanity

"Profanity (also called bad words, cursing or strong language) has traditionally been used to refer to items not belonging to the church. E.g. "The fort is the oldest profane building in the town, but the local monastery is older, and is the oldest sacred building." or "besides designing churches, he also designed many profane buildings".
Profane and vulgar is similar, as vulgar is from Latin vulgus or people. Any speech or writing other than Latin was described as vulgar, as it was 'of the people' as opposed to 'of the church'. Martin Luther translated the Latin bible into a vulgar language.
Profanity has therefore always been used to describe a word, expression, gesture, or othersocial behavior which is socially constructed or interpreted as insulting, rude and vulgar, or desecrating or showing disrespect as measured by the religious elite."--- Wiki

From my own experience I have observed some incidents where even simple slang words were treated as horrors! I was on assignment in South Carolina about ten years ago and I had to stay two months so I rented a little house. In the house next door lived a "Christian" family- and I do mean "Christian;" church three days a week. Within a couple days I would get home from work to see two boys about 12- 14 years old in the driveway shooting hoops and soon they invited me over to join them and I jumped at the chance. Now, I was a Boy Scout leader for eleven years and a professional in my field so I am always aware of the environment in which I am operating and that dictates my demeanor, and obviously, using profanity while playing basketball with two neighbor kids would not be appropriate on any occasion.

So Saturday rolls around and I mosey outside and they holler, "Hey dale! C'mon over!" So I did. After a couple minutes their father comes out, the boys make the introductions, and we are playing two on two and having a wonderful time. Within a couple minutes the younger boy missed a shot and exclaims, "Dang it!" In an instant that father whacked that kid across the back of the head hard enough that I was instantly incensed and a person with any less emotional control may have whacked that bastard right back. I was shocked! He told the boy that those type of words replaced words of filth and they would not be tolerated. The kid was embarrased to almost tears and I had not an iota of respect for that idiot. I played on a couple minutes and excused myself.

Profanity is totally relative to the person expressing it versus the one hearing it. I consider it a far greater offense to whack a kid like that than to say the word dang, or shit, or fuck.

This horseshit all started with the puritans and comes from the commandment about not taking the Lord's name in vain. The Puritans were masters at exagerating their religiosity to absurd levels- wich hunts, anybody?

You will notice that in my profanity laced comments I have never used the word "Goddamn." That has been a conscious decision that I made out of respect for the fundies.

In any case, I will respect the rules of the owner of the site. They have their own reasons and sensibilities.

Any self respecting mature adult will normally evaluate the environment and act appropriately. In my book, there is a time and a place for everything but when someone tells me that they think slavery is OK then they are a dumb doo-doo- head.

/d