POLL: Are we swearing more now than ever?

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Yes and especially yes. Swearing is so common it's become common. I won't be surpised if politicians start swearing more and more frequently. I won't be surprised in 20 years time when there's an act passed that contains a swear word such as "Stop trying to f*ck with the goverment! Pay your damn taxes!"

 

Taxes Yeah I swear a lot. Specially when talking about taxes. May that English king who made Taxes permanent aburn in hell for eternity

 

No...in both cases...sure theres a few people who swear alot, but everyone else its just the occasional one or two. so it all averages out in the end

I've made it my mission to try and not swear, I come up with harmless alternatives like "funk" my friends do it too!

 

Ever since having a kid, we swear a lot less. He repeats everything he hears us say so we try and make sure we don't use words that we don't want him to repeat.

 

Yes and no.

Words that used to be taboo are now no big deal. For example - "damn". Used to be a big deal. Now it ranks right up there with "jeepers", "golly" and "shucks".

For me, I say "sh*t" a lot, or when I'm really upset, "gee whiz".

 

Nitpicking:

That's the second, actually. Ask NOG what the first one is.

I don't know, actually, if we swear more than ever. I never lived before I was alive, you see? I swear much less than years ago, and I have the idea I hear less swearing around me, too.
Here in the Netherlands people use the most grievous illnesses. Cancer is the most favorite to mix into insults, calling names or express your fealings, while it is mostlikely one of the less favorite things that could happen to someone.

I recently use an old dutch rhyme: Sakkerloot! Hoe ongekend snood!
Sakkerloot comes from the latin Sacre Lotio (Holy Baptism). "Hoe ongekend snood" would be something like "How unprecedentedly vile/wicked"

My dictionary here translates Sakkerloot to By Jove...

 

I don't know. I live in England, in England a person swears maybe 4 times just describing the weather, it doesn't seem right to talk and not include swear words, in almost any situation.

 

I can't, really; they don't come out from me, and when posting/chatting, I use darng instead of... you know.
Even though we speak Spanish in Argentina (where I used to live) and of course, here in Spain, we have a lot of different words for swearing and for everyday's talk. So, while in Argentina 'coger' means to f**k in Spain means to grab/take; so is hard to me to use this word here, so I use the one I used to use back there, of course, most of the times, Spanish people don't understand what I'm saying. Imagine, there are almost 5 other words that here in Spain are normal words while in Argentina are swearings.

 

Hmm - I think I'll answer yes for both. I swear a *LOT* when I'm annoyed (I am a teenager after all...I'd do a demonstration, but I don't think that's appropiate), but I try not to in front of my girlfriend. However, in front of all other friends (even female ones) it's all good.

I also tend to insult using fancy phrases, like "Thou art a simpleton, m'Lord." which may or may not count...

 

I'm with MoN on this one. Having no direct experience of how people talked in the past, it's hard to make an accurate comparison. Given human nature though, I'm inclined to think that the amount of swearing has probably been pretty much the same no matter where or when you look. As Splunge points out, what words are considered profane my change through time, but I do not think that this would change the actual amount of swearing.

Comparing what I hear now to my childhood, I would say that I hear people swear more, but that may have more to do with the fact that I was a child then, and people may not have cursed when there was a child present - so maybe it's an instance where perception does not match reality.