I know I'm showing my age but I think that unfortunately with constant use swear words lose their shock value. If I hear two youngsters and every other word is a swear word, I don't tend to notice it but it certainly has more effect when someone who doesn't swear much, utters a swear word. And I certainly don't like it when anyone swears in front of a young child and yet frequently I hear young mothers doing so.
It does make me laugh though when I read the newspaper and I keep seeing f**k written - it's blantanly obvious what word they are not printing so why do it? Maybe "expletive deleted" (as was used on the Watergate transcripts) would make the paper reading more interesting as we could guess what was said!
I do swear on occassions (mainly when I'm provoked) but I think that the English language is so rich that to describe everything as f**king this and f**king that just isn't neccessary. But then I don't use smilies for the same reason... IMHO the English language has managed perfectly well for 1,000 years or whatever without a smiley so why start now?!
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