Pardon my British

I don’t swear. At times I think it’s a bit hypocritical of me. I watch movies that contain swearing and listen to music that contains swearing. I swear in my head. But I don’t swear out loud. I’m not really that temperant (not a word according to spellcheck, but I say it is) of an individual, it’s just that I don’t like speaking very much. So my speech is pretty deliberate, so it’s relatively easy to choose not to say certain things.

Which is not to say that my language is pristine. I had a missionary companion who told me sucks was a curse. I say sucks pretty often, so screw him. I also saw screw, and a variety of other words that I realize aren’t classy. But they’re emphatic, which is the argument people make for why they swear. And really, I don’t have a huge issue with it. It’s true, sometimes swearing makes me think less of people. But sometimes it makes me like them more. And there’s one particular girl who makes swearing cute. Using that language is gamble.

In addition to my low grade vulgarity, I do enjoy British swearing. My recent stint watching Skins reminded me of this. (Incidentally, I’m going to talk about Skins again next post, so deal with it.) If you’re British, you’ll probably be offended by this next sentence, so consider yourself warned. British curses that I enjoy include, but aren’t limited to: wanker, bollocks, shag, piss off, slag, bugger, balls, sodding, bloody and crap. I don’t consider myself British enough to pull off sodding or shag, but I’ve been known to use the rest on occasion. I was reading a BBC report on cursing and was surprised how highly some of these words ranked. Wanker for instance, is considered the 4th most offensive curse. I was also surprised that the C word beat out two F-bomb variations for the top spot, and wondered if it held the top spot on this side of the pond. I was also surprised to find crap and whore in their top 25. I use whore like water.

I don’t really have a conclusion, so here’s another Skins clip, which includes a fair amount of swearing, so should be avoided by civilized folk. It’s of Chris, who is probably my second favorite character.

Chris trying not to swear