Is it a sin to say the S word?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Str84ward
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
grannymh said:
Sht is my favorite descriptive word. One time, I said it out loud and my kids heard me. Believe me!
I surprised the sht out of them. 😃
Click to expand...
My mother does not use vulgar language often, and that’s probably why I still remember the first (only?) time I heard her say that word. We were on a several hour car trip (getting ready to move), and she forgot the camera so she could take pictures of the houses she and my dad were looking at to buy in our new city (this was before the Internet.) I was sitting in the passenger seat and about halfway through the trip casually asked where she had put it. She threw her hands up and said “Oh $%^&!” I don’t know why I didn’t think she knew it, but apparently she did. And I’ve never forgotten, and even tease her about it on occasion. 😛

(We did not go back for the camera. She composed herself very quickly and we continued on our journey. And they ended up buying the nicest house I think we ever lived in so apparently the camera was not 100% necessary.)
 
Tim_D said:
Wrong. It may not be the most meritorious habit in the world but being vulgar in itself is not a sin.
Click to expand...
Thank goodness (which is a euphemism). Vulgarities used to bother me a lot more than they do now. If I’m surprised by something I will usually say “heavens to Betsy!” Yes, I really do say that. 🙂

But the few times my donkeys have escaped, I’ve been known to use certain 4-letter words. It’s a lot of work rounding them up!

I remember reading a joke about how people use certain words: A lady walking down the sidewalk stepped in dog excrement. “Oh sh**!” she exclaimed. “I just stepped in doggy poo-poo!”
 
JimR-OCDS said:
But here St Paul is talking about words of malice, not vulgarity which in reality, has become part of everyday language in the Western World.

Its best to try and avoid such language, but for many, it’s like telling them to stop speaking with their particular accent.

Jim
Click to expand...
Sometimes literally. Husband met an Irish nun years ago who told him that she was very surprised, on arriving in the US, that the f word is a bad word here. Until then it was just a word to her.

Don’t know if that is still a word Irish nuns use. Any Irish here who could enlighten me?
 
To answer your question, yes it’s a sin. But if you say these words on the spur of the moment, that would lack reflection and diminish culpability.
Try to reflect that the tongue is what the God himself lands onto when we go to communion, to prevent foul language.

I can’t imagine anyone on these forums listening to Eminem lol. I’m not sure if listening to this is sinful, but I wouldn’t in the first place. After a while, these types of music no longer sound as good anymore.

All the best on your striving for holiness, OP
 
My understanding, acquired something like 20 years ago from reading a newspaper column about various quirks of the English language, is that the s-word and other words English-speakers consider “bad” originate from the German language. Back in one of those historical periods after various military conflicts between European nations (not the WW’s, further back than that), French culture emerged as the standard of elegance that well-bred people should emulate, while German culture was thought of as crude, ill-bred, “backwoods”, etc. Hence, French became the language of euphemisms and polite speech, while German became the language of vulgarity (remember the word “vulgar” comes from the Latin for “common”, as in “the common folk”) and ill-breeding.

I REALLY wish I could remember what column this was, but I never forgot that explanation and it is easily borne out by perusing a dictionary with etymological background.
 
I used to say:“Rats!!” when making a comment
about something which goes wrong.
I have trouble controlling my use of the curse
word: “G-damn” in the past year, esp. when
I am frustrated and down on myself,
(I have confessed it every-time that I remember
in confession)
but I don’t consider “Sh*t” a bad word.
 
In my personal opinion, I think swearing would only be a MORTAL sin, if intentionally done to either put someone down or to irritate someone intentionally.

No one on this forum can convince me that saying “the s word” in a spur of the moment situation, on accident, is a mortal sin.

Like a previous poster said, what is the difference in someone saying “oh shoot!” and “oh sh**!”? Both imply the same meaning, one is just considered “a bad word” by society.
 
pensmama87 said:
Mark Shea had an interesting blog post about this: Swearing and Vulgarity. He linked it recently on his Patheos blog with a follow-up here.

In the follow-up he has an excerpt from a really interesting letter from St. Thomas More to Martin Luther, in which St. Thomas More uses “the “s” word” more than once to make a point.

I don’t think it’s smart to use this kind of language, and I think it’s crude, but unless you’re intending to maliciously shock or horrify somebody (which admittedly is often the intent especially when young people begin employing it) I’m doubtful as to whether it’s sinful. I highly doubt it’s grave matter.
Click to expand...
Commenting on Shea’s use on “buck ferteth” —I live on a farm, and so I too often find myself dodging smelly horse farts. And of course anyone driving in an agricultural area can see farm animals who manure, urinate and breed right out in the open. Except for little kids maybe, people usually don’t make a big deal out of all this. They’re animals. But, for whatever the reason, human cultures normally have a sense that for people there should be some degree of privacy around these things. Look at the burying instructions for human waste for the Israelites in the wilderness as one ancient example. I think Shea is off base in saying it’s just from a Puritan influence that we get the idea of being more careful and private when choosing terms to refer to “excrement and reproduction”. I think there may be something uniquely human that gives us an internal check in that regard.

As far as using “sh*t”, well, think what you’re saying. Do you really mean to compare something to human waste? “F**k” is from a violent term for sex. How is that ever something that should be normalized as a way to express frustration?

I agree with the poster who said English is a rich language. There’s plenty of words available to say what you mean without using a lazy, crude word which isn’t really what you mean at all.

Now, if you want to come here and shovel some horse manure for me, you can call it whatever you like.😃
 
Rbaker said:
In my personal opinion, I think swearing would only be a MORTAL sin, if intentionally done to either put someone down or to irritate someone intentionally.

No one on this forum can convince me that saying “the s word” in a spur of the moment situation, on accident, is a mortal sin.

Like a previous poster said, what is the difference in someone saying “oh shoot!” and “oh sh**!”? Both imply the same meaning, one is just considered “a bad word” by society.
Click to expand...
But then the sin wouldn’t be in the word itself, but in bearing false witness against your neighbor.

You could commit the same mortal sin using polite language.

JIm
 
Rbaker said:
I think swearing would only be a MORTAL sin, if intentionally done to either put someone down or to irritate someone intentionally.
Click to expand...
Yet another reason of how I *love * the concept that Catholic morality is akin to plugging variables into an algebraic equation and having them come out “mortal/venial.” :rolleyes:
 
Mark 7:14-23. Translators have had issues with this passage for years. What do you think Jesus said?
 
OK, then, what about ****? A guy by the name of Crapper invented the “water closet,” or as we all call it now, the toilet.

I don’t think I would appreciate having Crapper as my last name.
 
PraiseChrist said:
To answer your question, yes it’s a sin. But if you say these words on the spur of the moment, that would lack reflection and diminish culpability.
Try to reflect that the tongue is what the God himself lands onto when we go to communion, to prevent foul language.
Click to expand...
Following the above reasoning – It is obvious that saying sht is not a sin. No way does the normal word shit refer directly to a Pure Spirit Creator God. When reflecting that it is the tongue which receives the Holy Eucharist – There is not a spec of shit because sht is material, not spiritual. The vulgar word is solely in the material realm. Now, if one calls directly God shi*t …:mad:
 
JimR-OCDS said:
But then the sin wouldn’t be in the word itself, but in bearing false witness against your neighbor.

You could commit the same mortal sin using polite language.

JIm
Click to expand...
I agree with this as well, I think we are on the same page here. I think there are other sins we should worry about.
 
Tim_D said:
Yet another reason of how I *love * the concept that Catholic morality is akin to plugging variables into an algebraic equation and having them come out “mortal/venial.” :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
I was just trying to comfort the OP. I think it is quite obvious they are probably a little scrupulous. Since mortal sins are the ones we need to go to confession for, I was just throwing out a possible scenario. If you would have read my full comment, you would have seen that I said cursing should be avoided regardless.
 
grannymh said:
Following the above reasoning – It is obvious that saying sht is not a sin. No way does the normal word shit refer directly to a Pure Spirit Creator God. When reflecting that it is the tongue which receives the Holy Eucharist – There is not a spec of shit because sht is material, not spiritual. The vulgar word is solely in the material realm.
Click to expand...
Dear friend,
I’m not sure what you mean. Saying this word is objectively a sin against the 2nd commandment, but can lower guilt since it might be without reflection.

I mean that when we receive the Blessed Sacrament (which is God (since it is Jesus)), God himself is literally being placed on our tongue for us to consume. Because of this, we wouldn’t want to curse with the same tongue he is giving His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.

Bottom line for the OP, do your best to avoid these things and don’t worry at all

All the best
 
Str84ward said:
Is it a sin to say the S word?

Can you pls provide any biblical examples?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Jesus said “I tell you, on the day of judgement men will render account for every careless [idle] word they utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matt. 12:36). St Gregory the Great comments “An idle word is one that lacks either the usefulness of rectitude or the motive of just necessity or pious utility.” St Thomas Aquinas remarks further “But an idle word is an evil, because “men . . . shall render an account of it in the day of judgment”… Therefore every word is either good or bad.”

“For God will bring every deed into judgement, with every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:14).

All our deliberate actions whether of thought, word, deed, or omission are either good or evil, meritorious or demeritorious, right or sinful. They are good if they are in accord with the eternal law and conducive to the glory of God, or wrong and sinful if otherwise. St Paul says: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31) and “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17). And Jesus said “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

Accordingly, we must consider whether obscene, vulgar, profane, and foul language and words are in accord with virtue, purity, and modesty or rather vice, impurity, and sinful. Now the very words we use to designate foul language show that it is impurity and immodesty of speech. Profane is that which is not sacred or holy but God calls us to be holy as he is holy and St Paul tells us that we are temples of the Holy Spirit. Foul language is unbecoming for a temple of the Holy Spirit and a christian. And if foul language is not virtuous, holy, pure and giving honor and glory to God and Jesus Christ, than it is sinful and a vice. Every deliberate word we utter is either good or bad, virtuous or sinful. I don’t know how any person can say that by using foul and impure language that this is in accord with the following of Jesus Christ who is purity itself or of the immaculate and spotless Virgin Mary. As it is said, ‘I don’t have to wallow in the mud to know its dirty.’

Christians are to put away dirty, obscene and foul language as St Paul says (cf. post #12 from Tombstone). “Let your speech always be gracious” (Colossians 4:6). Foul and course language is not graceful speech.

“ One way of talking is like death, let it not be found in the heritage of Jacob since devout people have nothing to do with that: they will not wallow in sin. Do not get into the habit of using coarse and foul language since this involves sinful words.” (Sirach 23: 12-13).

The virtues of purity and modesty involve purity and modesty in thought, word, and deed. Purity and modesty in speech is something holy and sacred. The Bible is the word of God and Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the Word of God through whom the Father created the world.

“The man of impure speech is a person whose lips are but an opening and supply pipe which hell uses to vomit its impurities upon the earth.”
– Saint John Vianney

Another weapon the devil employs is immodesty, or more frankly, impurity. My dear children, be on your guard. The devil will tempt you with bad books, bad thoughts, or the foul conversation of a companion. When any such fellow approaches you, say to yourself, This is a minister of Satan. And let these wretches who indulge in foul conversation say to himself, I am a minister of Satan because I help him ruin souls!
  • St. John Bosco
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top