Disclaimer: I do not intend for my following use of "language" to be offensive, crude, or crass.
Sometimes when I get angry, and I mean REALLY angry, I let a choice word or two slip out of my mouth. And, every time, a nearby parent or family member is quick to scold me. They tell me these words make me seem unintelligent and tasteless. I agree with them to an extent, because I have always felt that swear words held a lot of power and therefore should be used in moderation and with extreme caution. The more a certain type of word is used, the less effective its power.
However, these people that tend to scold me for my language choice are the types of people who use replacement words. For example, instead of saying "damn" or "shit," they say "darn" and "shoot." These words are of course cleaner and more family friendly, and not too disastrous if my little sister repeats it to her friends at school. But, aren't these "safer" words almost the same thing as swear words? Yeah, they're cleaner and not dirty, but when you say "darn it" we all know you're really meaning to say "damn it." When my mom exclaims "Poop!" I know that she is actually shouting "Shit!" To me saying these words aren’t much better, and it seems as though the power that damn and shit hold is just thinly veiled in darn and shoot. What is it that makes these words so squeaky clean? I decided to search for the definitions to some of these words in an effort to answer that question.
However, these people that tend to scold me for my language choice are the types of people who use replacement words. For example, instead of saying "damn" or "shit," they say "darn" and "shoot." These words are of course cleaner and more family friendly, and not too disastrous if my little sister repeats it to her friends at school. But, aren't these "safer" words almost the same thing as swear words? Yeah, they're cleaner and not dirty, but when you say "darn it" we all know you're really meaning to say "damn it." When my mom exclaims "Poop!" I know that she is actually shouting "Shit!" To me saying these words aren’t much better, and it seems as though the power that damn and shit hold is just thinly veiled in darn and shoot. What is it that makes these words so squeaky clean? I decided to search for the definitions to some of these words in an effort to answer that question.
According to Merriam-Webster, the word ‘damn’ can be defined as:
1: to condemn to a punishment or fate; especially : to condemn to hell
2a : to condemn vigorously and often irascibly for some real or fancied fault or defect <damned the storm for their delay>b : to condemn as a failure by public criticism
3: to bring ruin on
4: to swear at : curse —often used to express annoyance, disgust, or surprise <damn him, he should have been careful> <I'll be damned>
When I then searched for the word ‘darn,’ I found something interesting.
1: to mend with interlacing stitches
2: to embroider by filling in with long running or interlacing stitches
Underneath that definition, however, I was given a link to the definition of ‘damn.’ So unless someone intends to say “Mend it with interlacing stitches” when they say “darn it,” the meaning of their replacement word is exactly the same as the “bad” word itself.
I realize this is no great philosophical discovery but it is something that has always irked me a little. I never understood what gave “bad” words such power and what made them worse than their more innocent counterparts. I think I’m going to start taking pleasure in acting astonished at my grandmother’s foul language the next time she calls my grandfather “a big poo-poo” for forgetting to take out the trash.
And, with that, I leave you with one of my favorite "replacement moments."
Sources:
www.merriam-webster.com
www.youtube.com
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