froborr:

jenniferrpovey:

halloweenatasha:

jumpingjacktrash:

mhalachai:

“By the first world war, soldiers swore so much that the word “fucking” came to function as no more than “a warning that a noun is coming”. “

Guardian review of Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing by Melissa Mohr 

i would like to take this opportunity to present my headcanon about that infamous “language!” line: steve and the howlies had such dirty mouths that they had to be constantly reminded to clean it up for the reporters that followed them around. so steve heard a swear word over the radio and had a kneejerk stop that we’re being filmed for the folks back home reaction.

in other words, he said “language” not because he never swears, but because if he’s not on guard he swears way too much. 😀

“the word ‘fucking’ came to function as no more than “a warning that a noun is coming”

And the interesting thing about actually dealing with people who do swear to that degree, which I have, is that eventually your brain completely tunes the word fucking out.

You basically don’t hear it. It becomes unimportant noise.

I was actually just talking to someone last night about how when I was a kid (the 80s), no one said “fuck” or “shit,” ever, but people casually tossed slurs around like nobody’s business. Now people use “fuck” and “shit” like punctuation, but slurs are increasingly taboo–and that’s exactly how it should fucking be.