SWEARING COMES OUT OF ALMOST EVERYONE’S MOUTH TODAY. BUT WHY DO WE DO THIS?

We all know what "bad words" are. Unlike most other language rules, we learn about swearwords and how to use them without any real study or classroom instruction. Even very young children know which words are naughty, although they don't always know exactly what those words mean. But swearwords aren't quite as simple as they seem. Saying them is taboo in nearly every culture, but instead of avoiding them as with other taboos, people use them. Most associate swearing with being angry or frustrated, but people swear for a number of reasons and in a variety of situations. In America, 72 percent of men and 58 percent of women swear in public. The same is true for 74 percent of 18 to 34 year olds and 48 percent of people who are over age 55. Numerous language researchers report that men swear more than women, but studies that focus on women's use of language theorize that women's swearing is simply more context specific.

Profanity can be a word, expression, gesture, or other social behavior which is socially constructed or interpreted as insulting, rude or vulgar, desecrating or showing disrespect toward an object of religious veneration. There are five cartegories of profanity or swearing according to author Steven Pinker:Dysphemistic swearing; Abusive swearing; Idiomatic swearing to be macho/cool; Emphatic swearing; Cathartic swearing like coffee spilling, and people curse; Profanity relies upon how the use of the word affects an individual. Some will consider the original meaning of a word (for example, the sexual act) to be offensive. Profanities may cause offense, regardless of context, if they have some religious meaning which may cause their use to offend those who follow a particular religion. The original meaning of the term was restricted to blasphemy, sacrilege or saying the Abrahamic God's name in vain. Profanity in this context could be represented as a secular indifference to religion or religious figures, while blasphemy was a direct attack on them, or was interpreted as such even when that was not the intent. Such religious profanity is referred to as blasphemy.

Many of the words now considered most 'profane' are held to be so because they were created to insult and disparage a particular group. Some of the targets of these words have however attempted to reclaim them and reduce their power as insults. However profanity or swearing is present in every language and it usually centers on references to particular things, for instance in German one of the worst things you can say to another is equating that person to animals. In Chinese it is sex and insults to family members, or just plain cursing. In Arabic it is blasphemy, excrement, sex and homosexuality. As we have said profanity crosses all languages. So how do we avoid uttering many of these insults and bad terms? Practice, practice, practice is the way. Swearing and profanity is not necessary to make a strong point.