What the H*LL?

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Black Jaque:
I can think of one particular way where Hell is the equivalent to using the Lords name in vain. Whenever variants of the phrase “to Hell with it” or “go to Hell” are used these are in fact the same as saying “God damn it”. Which is a violation of Commandment Numero Dos.
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If you want to see some shocked faces, when someone drops the GD bomb, say, “OK, but please give me a few minutes. I have a slight headache and a bit of a backlog.” There usually isn’t a next time. :whistle:

Alan
 
We did not swear in the house I grew up in or we would get to do the dishes for a week as a reward.

I know mum said “darn” a couple of times like when she slashed her hand by accident, dad would say “by Jove” on occasion which are vulgarities.

I say “sugar” as an expletive or 'okeydokey" which amuses my colleagues…🙂
 
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Melanie01:
We did not swear in the house I grew up in or we would get to do the dishes for a week as a reward.

I know mum said “darn” a couple of times like when she slashed her hand by accident, dad would say “by Jove” on occasion which are vulgarities.

I say “sugar” as an expletive or 'okeydokey" which amuses my colleagues…🙂
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That’s about how our house was, too. I think “sugar” and “okeydokey” are pretty well encoded, so it would be hard to trace them back to evil intent. 🙂

Alan
 
Maybe I am way off but I have always thought of it this way…

Why is ST a bad word and not Poo-Poo. They are the same thing , right?
How come BCH and not Female Dog or , You bad person. Same thing. There are many synonymns for these words.
Who made these words in the first place? I don’t think they existed (these exact words ) in God’s time.
So… what makes a word a bad one?
I feel it is the usage. If you are cursing or ill-wishing on someone, that is wrong. If you are using a word in a truly Vulgar and demeening way, that is wrong.

Now, if you smash your thumb with the hammer and yell “S**T!” Are you commiting a sin? Going to hell? Hmmm… I don’t know.
 
I don’t think so; as words go “hell” is a bad place for bad people.

What I’m really curious about though, is why we use explicatives as we do.
 
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Melanie01:
We did not swear in the house I grew up in or we would get to do the dishes for a week as a reward.

I know mum said “darn” a couple of times like when she slashed her hand by accident, dad would say “by Jove” on occasion which are vulgarities.

I say “sugar” as an expletive or 'okeydokey" which amuses my colleagues…🙂
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How is “By Jove” a vulgarity ? By “vulgarity”, I assume you mean what is otherwise called a “four-letter word”​

Curiously enough, “By Jove” did not count as sinful 80 years ago - Preummer’s Theologia Moralis (1923) discusses what expressions are sinful and need to be confessed, and which are customary and not sinful - “By Jove”, like “Donnerwetter”, is considered to be customary, and therefore not to contract the malice of the sin of violating the Second Commandment.

Maybe morals have tightened up.

To avoid swearing, I whistle 🙂 - it seems to help ##
 
I think it’s very serious and people treat it as very mild. But an expression like “Go to hell” said in anger, or “God damn it/you” is just about the most serious thing I can imagine. Think about what you’re saying! That’s a far more dreadful thing to say to someone than any other four-letter word I can think of.

I would also avoid “what the hell” - I don’t think it’s as serious because it’s not like a direct epithet against someone, but we would be wise to avoid careless invocation of the name.
 
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Melanie01:
I know mum said “darn” a couple of times like when she slashed her hand by accident, dad would say “by Jove” on occasion which are vulgarities. . . . . . . . . . . . . or 'okeydokey" which amuses my colleagues…🙂
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  1. How is okeydokey an expletive or a bad word? We use it all the time, as a cute way to say OK, or “all right.”
  2. Technically, “By Jove” is not meaningless. It is borderline bad word today, an expletive. But in Victorian times, or even earlier, it was considered an oath. As in taking an oath in court, with your hand on the Bible. This was considered an extremely serious act, you were “swearing to God” or “swearing by God” that what you said was true, the eternal damnation of your soul was at stake. The “Jove” part was a substitution for “God” or even “Jesus” (Jove was the chief god of the Romans, or was it the Greeks.
Any other expression starting with “by” is classified as an oath. In Victorian times, it was only uncouth rude and rough people like pirates, sailors or drunkards who spewed oaths around. It was considered verbal violence, and ladies would cover their ears and their children’s ears when these were uttered. It was a serious breach of manners. Another oath is “By Cracky” (trying to sanitize it by substitution Cracky for Christ).

“Crimanentlies” or “Jiminy Cricket” are substitutes for “Jesus” or “Christ.” There are many variations of this one.

By the way, many people on these forums use the expletive “Sheesh!” This is also a sanitized version of “Jesus!” I am sure that the people using this frequently don’t know the real origin of this “word” or they wouldn’t use it.

These are all sins against the Second commandment “Do not take the name of God in vain.” Swearing to the truth of your testimony by the name of God in court or as a witness to a document are the only permitted uses of oaths that I can think of. Even then, there are religious denominations who refuse to “swear by God’s name,” they use the terminology “Affirm” rather than “swear,” in these cases.

It is sad that sensitivity to sins like these is practically non-existant in our present culture, or lack of it.
 
It isn’t bad word, but of course it is a bad place, so saying what some people say would mean they don’t love their neighbor as themself or Christ, so that part is a sin.
 
Out of the 200,000 or so (English) common words used today, one would think that there would be at least a few that could be used as an alternate to more profane language. 😉
 
This is one helluva poll! (BTW, the only one of the so-called “swear words” that I find offensive is the offhand usage of “GD” or “JC”. “Fxxx”, “Sxxx”, “Dxxx” or pretty much any of the others don’t bother me at all.)

Peace (you xxxxxxx’s)! 😃

PS: I truly don’t believe that the good lord cares one way or another about the usage of any of 'em (except, perhaps, for the two that I find offensive… I think he’s got more important things to concern himself with!)
 
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twistpenguin:
Out of the 200,000 or so (English) common words used today, one would think that there would be at least a few that could be used as an alternate to more profane language. 😉
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Yes. I agree. I tend to favour “sugarplum” myself.

Peace,
Katherine 😃
 
I heard little kids go so far as saying, “what the…”. They wouldn’t dare go beyond that. Even in cartoon nowaday, that phrase is often used.
 
I would say I agree with most of the people here. Wishing someone to hell is the worst insult you could give them, a lot worse than some of the most taboo words we know. Other than that, I am generally not offended by anything other than when someone takes the Lord’s name in vain. That, however, I am offended by, and I am unfortunately exposed to it a lot. Usually whenever someone says “Jesus Christ”, my first instinct is that they’re taking His name in vain 😦

I don’t care for the word “mother******” either, unless it’s meant literally, because I think ‘mother’ might be a reference to Mary.

I use other swear words, though, although not in the presence of ladies or anyone who would be offended by it.

Some of the things I say instead of taking the Lord’s name in vain are: liberty and freedom, for freedom’s sake, and I don’t give four score and seven years 🙂
 
The reason why such language (outside of theological discussion of potential destiny) is highly unfortunate is that it is propaedeutic for indifference. I cringe when secularists bandy about a whole class of words, from hell, to spiritual, to miracle, to god (they don’t capitalize it anymore), to other words that are proper to the true faith (and numerous false faiths as well). They are trivializing and appropriating words so that they will lack their meaning: their wish is to say ‘O word, where is thy sting’. Additionally, hell as an expletive is bad because expletives are a loss of patience, and furthermore are problems in the ‘idle word’ category for which we will be held accountable.

What I hate even more is when I think such an expression in my head. I feel guilty, and I desire ever more to end such thinking patterns.

Once I heard a priest say of a hot room “It’s hotter than Hell in there.” I thought that was a bit much. He gives excellent homilies though, and good advice in the confessional.
 
I voted “yes” and I would also like to add “OMG” (it pains me to even type it!) to that list as I have seen on several postings here.

Melissa
 
“What the hell” is improper, and to my taste it is swearing. If you are talking about Hell as in a place which exists then it is not swearing, if you are using it to tell someone to go to hell then that is even worse than saying “what the hell” because no one should ever tell anyone or wish for anyone (aside from the devil 😃 ) to go to hell. There are many words which are considered bad words and I don’t know how they became bad words… such as the more technical words of animals (female dogs, roosters, cats) All bad words are basically made up slang used to insult or intimidate others, or used in a vulgar way to make one self look “cool” or release stress. The only true curse words that I am aware of is God’s name in vain, and I believe this is not limited to the two most popular forms of God’s name in vain either, if at any time you degrade the name of God (and there are many ways to do this) that is taking God’s name in vain.
 
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Davethewave:
There are many words which are considered bad words and I don’t know how they became bad words… such as the more technical words of animals (female dogs, roosters, cats).
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That’s a good question. I have actually looked several of them up on Wiki. Here are some interesting facts:

The ‘s’ word was a native English word, and considered inoffensive (possibly even the technical term?) until several other countries invaded/pillaged/visited/etc., leaving behind a few words of their own. Many of these words were considered more “proper”, so their original counterparts, particularly the ‘s’ word, was not used. Probably it started off as being less than proper and, as people kept insisting the word not be used, it became considered a vulgarity.

The three-letter a-word is derived from the British version, the four-letter a-word; it has an ‘r’ in it but as the English barely pronounced the r, most people just hear it as the three-letter version. It apparently has nothing to do with the equus asinus (or any other animal in the Equdae family for that matter), nor the non-swear term, “jack***”.

“Moron”, not really a swear word but an insult nonetheless, originated as a medical term, but due to it’s vast overusage as a general insult to one’s intelligence, a new technical term was used.

Apparently, the F word has always been considered vulgar. The first known usage of it was in Latin, and written in code. It’s interesting that if a word was so much avoided that people didn’t just forget the word altogether.
 
Nan S:
The word I can’t tolerate, especially from children, is “sk": "that sks” “you sk" "it’s sking (insert adjective here)”.

When I hear this, I try to catch the offender and make him/her think about what was just said: “If you know what that word you just shouted REALLY referred to, you would probably be too embarassed to show your face in public for a long time.” That generally gets a moment’s reflection, a wide-eyed look, and a quiet blush.
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YesYesYesYesYesYesYes. I remember when that was exactly what it meant. And that was the only meaning it had.

And another one I ranted about on another thread is “frigging”. It has morphed from freaking, to fricking, to the above.

These words should be reserved for my neighbors to overhear, not broadcast on radio and tv.
 
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