Keri, this post and all it's comments have had me laughing out loud for about 20 minutes. Thank you from the bottom of my abs which feel like I've done a hundred sit-ups!!

Looking forward to the next book. Please keep us posted. Also, if you decide to self-publish anything and sell it to benefit a worthy cause, you know I'll buy!

Well... I can remember having the mouth of a sailor since I was about ten. My younger brother and I knew when and where to use our "dirty" little words... In the orange groves of course. The Sunkist orange groves in California was our playground and more importantly our haven for expressing ourselves with no consequences. "Mother Fucker" rang through the trees. Funny thing is, we didn't hear these words from our parents. "Ward" and "June" would have killed us for even thinking it.

One day, a friend of "Ward's" phoned and I picked up and didn't hear anything. My brother and I were alone in the house and we assumed it was a crank caller. We used every "dirty" word known to man. Turns out the guy heard us but due to a bad connection we couldn't hear him. Guy informs "Ward" and "Ward" goes ape shit. Beats the shit out of us, followed by a soap sucking session compliments of Mom. People have always told me I have a dirty mouth and one even asked, "Didn't your Mother ever wash your mouth out with soap?" And I said, "Yeah, but it didn't do any fuckin' good." Celebrating you, celebrating me. :)

Georgia has been my home for all but 2 of my 31 years. I started life in the Deep South where the "rich" people were from landed families that must fight tooth and nail to put food on the table AND pay the property tax. We were all so poor that none of us noticed. Christmas and birthdays brought things we needed and a few conservatively priced toys. We had nothing to give each other but respect.
When I ask how a word could be bad my marmie said that the word itself wasn’t anything but a word. The badness was how another person could be hurt by me saying it. She explained that some people, especially older people like my much loved grandparents, thought such words meant that you didn’t care if you hurt their feelings. That explanation defined my relationship to four letter words. I don’t care for the way curse words make me feel about myself so I avoid them much in the same way I avoid hammering nails into my hands because I don’t much like the way that makes me feel either.

Such a funny thing with your blog, Kerry. Everybody always agrees with everything you say. But since I live in Canada I have hardly met a soul who is ok with the fuck word. They call it the f word. Children get suspended from school if they say fuck. I taught my children to only use the word at home. I am quite sure there must be dozens of WJJ readers who completely do not agree with this post of yours, but I don't expect they would say so in these comments.

When I swear, it is because I really feel that way at the time. While it might seem offensive to others, it would equally offend me to be told what to say and how to say it. Being Italian and raised in the USA. I speak my mind. In other countries it could get you killed. Thank God for free speech.

Oh, and as far as worrying what others think...

"I am human, therefore nothing human is foreign to me."

---Jean Genet

People who get their feathers all ruffled usually forget their animal roots.

Fuckin' Yay!!!

Life is an ocean.

Becoming an expert sailor often requires that you swear like one.

And let's remember where the "F" word comes from...

Files
Under
Carnal
Knowledge

Take away the age old notion that carnal knowledge is a "sin" and whoila!

The F Word becomes Fun with a capitol F.

Personally, I treasure the carnal side of life.

People who don't swear make me nervous. In fact, when I hear people swearing in an intelligent manner, it comforts me. Perhaps it is because my late great chain-smoking mother swore with such panache that it seemed graceful. She could swear like Martha Graham danced, with transcendent beauty.

As for diluting words, I am not sure I agree with you. I don't think that swearing dilutes the power of the words...any more than I believe that saying "I Love You" to those that I adore diminishes the truth of the way that I feel about them. On the contrary, the more I say "I Love You" to someone, the more I really feel it.

Keep practicing your cursive. Practice makes perfect. After a lifetime of cursing, I finally feel at the top of my game. I am like a jedi when it comes to bad words.

May the fuck force be with you.

--D.

Hi Keri,

I think that is excactly one of the reasons why the Italians live such long lives. They let it all out loud with all the emotional energy attached to it instead of trying to be nice and keep it all bottled up.Makes for an authentic life as well, that's for sure.

Va bene!
~tine.

Dagnabbit! I couldn't have said it better myself!

My favorites: stink, crap, pissed, and dangit. On rare occasions I enjoy saying "F-en" just like Jane from Life Aquatic.

This is such an ironic bit of timing. My speaking self has been oft accused of cussing like a sailor, but when I type out a line in a post the way I would normally utter it out loud, it inevitable looks and feels crass. So I delete it and replace the expletive with some less offensive to my own eyes demonstrative. And then I think, if it pains me to read it coming out of my mouth, imagine how it must sound.

Doesn't have any impact on curbing my oratorical habits, but it does make me think.

Hooray for the praise for profanity. I've always, always had a sailor's mouth. My defense was always that I had a huge arsenal of words, so it wasn't like swear words were the only words I knew.

Nowadays? I have to be either really, really angry (very, very rare) or super psyched about something to go blue. Not so much on the blogs.

oh yeah :) . . . I used to use swear words exactly like that - to make a good hard point - and it is more powerful when you don't use them much. But I also don't use them on my blog usually because of the godawful spam you can get from including a sentence like "I feel like such an emotional slut around the holidays because everyone around me seems to get so anal around every fucking thing" and then getting spammed as the place when someone is googling for fucking anal sluts :) Oh the internet . . . .

Fucking Brilliant! :-)

I love cussing. I don't swear like every bleedin' other effin' word mind you. A well-placed and well-used swear can really help get your point across, and if you're alone, letting out a string of profanities can help you feel better.

I'll tell you what else is fucking brilliant - Living Out Loud. Keri, reading that book has got my 2005 off to a great start! Thank you.

The first time I ever said, "Fuck!" was in my therapist's office. She didn't even flinch--she's an awesome older woman who understands the power of a needed expletive. In fact, she's used them with me a time or two herself.

I recently read a book where one of the characters often said, "Fuck and alas." I loved that! My own version of that is, "Dammit, DAmmit, DAMMit, DAMMIT!" I think I also screw up my face when I say it--that helps, too, I think.

Hi - I am a recent subscriber to your wonderful blog.

Can't help but comment on this post as I made this very "dilution" point earlier this evening when watching our TV news. I called it "debasing the currency".

There is a current hot debate in the UK, regarding "Jerry Springer, The Opera". One "newspaper" here has calculated a total of (get this) 8,000 swear words in the production. It's all nonsense of course.

There is an article here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4154071.stm

I learned to swear without fear when I worked in service to the landed gentry. My boss was an ex-army officer and I learned the art of bellowing "bugger" in a cultivated accent (bugGAAAHH). It sounds inoffensive said that way, even mildlyt amusing, but by Jove, it certainly released the stress and maked me feel better.

It took me forty years or more to learn to say "fuck". I don't use it a lot but sometimes one needs to up the ante. :-)

Theere is nothing wrong with a little honest Anglo Saxon vocabulary. I only take exception to it where the words are used because of a lack of an alternative, more expressive and appropriate, vocabulary. That is sadly common, in the UK.

Don't worry about fuckin' offending me. It takes a lot to fuckin' offend me.

I know what you mean - you write and you don't really know these people who read your writing.

Fuckin' good entry!

But seriously, I do agree. I never used to swear (probably because when I was a kid my mom used to curse like a sailor and it kinda scared me; I know about the fear thing!), but when I met my husband, he introduced me to 'the dark side'. Now I think I swear more than him!

Sometimes, no other word will do. But excessive use does dilute its power, for sure. And I try very hard not to swear in front of children, and now even my mother tries, too. (But she still slips up sometimes; makes for interesting family gatherings!)