I am increasingly concerned about the use of bad language surrounding us every day. I am not some saint who never swears. I have been known to use the ‘F’ word (in private), though never the ‘C’ word or the ‘T’ word which I find repulsive. To me it is totally different though to use any bad language publicly.
I used to teach naughty boys. I LIKE teaching naughty boys. However, one of their distinctive features was to use the ‘F’ word repeatedly – as a noun, verb, adverb, adjective. I drew their attention to it constantly and I actually believe that they didn’t really realise they were doing it. It had become a habit and done subconsciously.
Now, my main grouse is its use in social media. Why would there ever be a reason to use bad language in a tweet? Why would you need to create a Facebook account name with a naughty word in it? My gut reaction is to eliminate that person from my network – even if they are retweeting someone else. I object to seeing bad language in my stream and as my grandson is starting to read enthusiastically, I object to him seeing anything inappropriate on my computer.
I think that using bad language shows a lack of imagination. If you can’t think of an alternative, then your vocabulary must be severely limited. Just think how interesting your tweets would be if you didn’t resort to using profanities? I’ll give you an example…..
Let’s say you were commenting on a person who had made lots of decisions which were affecting the lives of many thousands of people. He was doing this with little or no sensible judgement and despite using advisors and then ignoring their professional judgement. Person A might tweet:
‘That f****ing little s***** w***** hasn’t got a clue’
This certainly gets the message across, but isn’t very pleasant for the reader.
Person B – using their excellent vocabulary – can tweet something much more attractive without resorting to horrible words:
‘That miserable pipsqueak is lacking in logical thought and consideration of others’
There you go. Isn’t that so much better?
Of course, Twitter offers us an even more concise way of doing things – the hashtag.
Person C might tweet:
‘#Govemustgo’
Make it so, Mr Spock.
Lynda's Blog 
I accept that language use changes, after all my degree was in Enlgish Literature. However I blanch at the sweary stuff that emanates from a lot of people as a matter of course these days. Its not that long ago when such langauge would have been a ‘breach of the peace’. Now the air is polluted with such language and nowhere seems ‘safe’. The number of young mums – and I mean young – who pass our house effing and blindinbg at their toddlers or even their babies…. sheesh.
And as for sweary on Twitter – far too many people think it shows they are ‘clever’. There are one or two I follow who do swear a lot but I persevere because what they say – dropping the offensive words – is still intelligent. Anyone else just gets unfollowed.
I regard it as pollutioin and lack of concern for others – why should I have to hear this, why should I have to read this?
Last year I went to a certain female stand up comedienne and she started off by saying ‘I’m not allowed to swear on the BBC so I make up for it in my stage show…’ Sorry I didn’t pay a significant amount of money to listen to soemone swear on stage…. I thought I was coming to be made to laugh.
We all know the words, we can all use them. Some of us use them for effect, sparingly, and with concern and care for who might hear them.