On swearing
There is a recent interesting article in The Wall Street Journal about an apparent increase in crude swearing that the journalist links to the virus-scare stress. Last winter, I got really stressed out by the virus scare and more importantly government over-reaction to it. But I usually use non-vulgar jokes instead of swear words to vent stress.
(A disclaimer: a long time ago I wrote for an affiliate of this newspaper.)
Here is an excerpt from the article:
“Pandemic stress, the melding of personal and professional spheres, and an exhausted slide toward casualness are making many of us swear more. It is ‘a perfect swearing storm’ says Michael Adams, a linguist at Indiana University Bloomington.”
.Two comments. I really hate the word “pandemic” in the current context. It seems like an alarmist word created by government officials to justify their jobs. The other is one of my high school English teachers I liked said in class that it is socially acceptable to curse sometimes, if you are really angry, but you have to be careful not to do it too much.
That same school teacher had us read The Catcher in the Rye in which the narrator famously regrets while looking at graffiti saying “F— you” that you can’t erase all expressions like this in the world. I think it ties into one of the main themes of the novel: that the narrator can’t fully protect his younger sister.
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