The (not so) manly art of swearing.

The (not so) manly art of swearing.

In yesterday’s post I mentioned that I come from the “throwing tools and swearing” school of mechanics. Yes I do swear while working on my cars, but don’t get the idea that I am a fan of swearing in our regular speech.

I hardly think I am a prude but swearing is one thing I think should be kept to a minimum. Primarily for three reasons the least of which is that I’d like civil discourse become more popular for all of us.

Many years ago I worked on a logging crew, setting chokers. It is a hard, dangerous and thankless job. I enjoyed the company of my co-workers but they all had the habit of swearing constantly. I cheerily joined it and cuss words became part of my lexicon.

Then one day I heard myself talking to my girlfriend of the time. I sounded like an ignorant, low life jerk. I couldn’t make a complete sentence without using some offensive four letter word. I like to think I am a smart person. No one else would have thought so listening to my speech patterns back then. I decided at that moment to remove certain words from my vocabulary. There is almost always better word to use than sh!t or f@#k.

That being said my final reason to refrain from using swear words is that if you use them too often, when you really need one they no longer have the power they otherwise might. 

If you’ve seen SIcko by Michael Moore you’ve seen a part of my life. I was featured in that movie for a hand accident I suffered several years ago. I zipped off a couple of finger tips with a table saw. Yes, I swore then.

“F@#k, f@#k, f@#k-itty, f@#k.” Is exactly what I said when I saw what had happened to my fingers. I say “saw” because the pain had not yet reached my brain. 

If I used the “F” word all the time it would not have been as forceful as I needed at that moment. 

Save your cuss word for when you really need them. The world will be a better place and you will have a stronger set of cuss words.

Tomorrow how this relates to my writing.