Posted 31 May 2006 - 07:16 AM
For the most part, I don't consider most of the "bad" swear words different from regular words. In my regular day-to-day speech I utter profanity without even thinking about it.
I consider lots of non-swear words to be much more offencive than certain swear words. For instance, I don't consider the f-word to be necessarily bad if used as an adjective, though speaking about sex and stuff can be innappropriate at times, depending on where and when you are talking. When I am in a public eye, such as posting on forums here, I try not to use profanity because it is thought of as offencive to a large amount of people, but when I'm talking with my friends and stuff (would have said the 's' word there if I was speaking aloud to friends, i.e.) it's different.
So like I said, I consider using regular, non-cuss words, as having more potential for being much more offencive than the use of swear words. For instance, people so blindly describing as something as being gay in a negative aspect pisses me off more than calling someone a b-word or something. I'd much preferred to be called an a-hole or something than be called gay in a negative fashion.
But yeah, Sorry this post is a bit off topic. What defines a swear word, to me, is any word that is offencive to others.