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"Hell" isn't a bad word. It's just a word some people, although I don't think many, don't like to hear. There's quite a few words or terms that are considered rude/disrespectful/inappropriate in some places, but acceptable or even polite in others.

As an example for terms, I grew up in Washington state(Northwest in the United States) and there it was unacceptable to refer to adult females as "ma'am," but not disrespectful to call men "sir." Eventually I moved to South Carolina and, to the amusement of many kids, was caught in the front of a class with the teacher saying in a rather disgruntled tone, "excuse me!?" I thought she was deaf and so continuously repeated myself, louder each time. It was somewhere between five and ten minutes before I was informed that I had insulted her by not calling her "ma'am" when I said "yes" and I was also informed that words such as "yeah," "yup," or "uh huh" were considered to be rude and immature. In Washington, everyone I was around said "yeah" or "yup" and occasionally someone might say "uh huh" so that is what I would say.

I just thought I'd share that. It's another example of how things are interpreted differently in different places by different people. I'm now happily back in the Northwest, by the way.

That's my point exactly. Different people interpret things in different ways. This generally varies from culture to culture as opposed to being from one home to the next, but in some cases can change so quickly.

That's a way of softening the blow, but it's about the use of/intent behind the word. It is better than straight up swearing though.

Oh, and Tango's one of the NATO Phoenetic letters, and I use it for WTF (Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot) and Foxtrot for "F***" ("Foxtroting spammer", etc.)

"What the T is this?!"

Reading this thread was actually really interesting. smile

I myself swear semi-often, usually when at work and very frustrated with people.

I don't find I personally notice very much when people swear since it is incredible common here, but very recently, I noticed when someone DIDN'T. And her absence of swearing COMPLETELY made me feel awkward when I used curse words around her. So I made sure I didn't use them when I was around her, and always I have a great time with her, and leave in a better mood when I got there. And other people notice it too. People at her work, people at school, other friends, everyone knows that you couldn't pay Kaelie to say curse words, and it's really great. smile She gets an interesting sort of respect for it.

To sort of support this, there is a woman at my work who has been there for 30 years, and she's rather unhappy about her situation. She just seems like an all-round unhappy person, and she swears A LOT. It makes people around her almost NERVOUS to be there because she is so angry and hostile all the time- and it's definitely her curse word usage that helps this along.

So, my personal goal now is to cease swearing. smile

I just burst out laughing XD, "tango" is "word" in Japanese.
On swear words, I don't use them a lot, but I've taken to using Japanese swears when talking in English and vice versa.

The origin of the word "s**t" came as a nautical abbreviation. In olden times, when we used to fertilize our fields with bird guano, said guano was shipped in - you guessed it - really big boats. As you also probably know, fecal matter releases methane gas as a by-product of digestion. Now and again, sailors were obliged to go below decks to check on the cargo (I pity the poor fellows who had to do this.) and in those times we had oil lamps, not flashlights. Fire, in such high concentrations of methane gas, did exactly what you think it might.

Thus, containers of guano required labeling with S.H.I.T that is "Ship High in Transit". In other words, it was an instruction to carry the fertilizer above deck so the methane gas would not collect and concentrate below. It's fairly simple to see where it went from there.

Now, I must confess that I am a linguist by training. It's what I went to school for. For four years they beat into our heads: No dialect is inferior to another, they're all just different. I feel the same about cuss words.

Not everyone has been taught that cuss-words are classified as emphasizers, and may indeed take offense to them depending on how they were raised. I do use them for emphasis much in the same way one would use adjectives and exclamation points. I have never been accused of being "unoriginal" or "stupid" for using adjectives or punctuation and will pay no attention if accused of such things for using cuss words.

I swear around almost everyone, including children and when praying. Those who have problems with this know enough not to bring their children to my house as I take pains to inform them that my speech will be unfiltered. The only people I do not swear around are those that I think might be offended AND have the leverage to make my life unpleasant. This is because I truly believe that there is nothing wrong with cussing and to try to keep myself from doing so would imply feelings of guilt and wrongdoing.

While words only have as much power and meaning as people are willing to give them, I think right speech has more to do with what one does with one's speech. I think right speech is about lying, verbally abusing others, gossiping, slander and many other hurtful things we can do with our speech without uttering so much as "poop" in the process. While I do confess to doing all of these things (imperfect creature that I am) I DO try not to do them because I do think there is something wrong with doing so. Dependent on circumstances of course. Always that.

I have to admit I do curse a lot.
never at anyone, but on numerous occasions I've gotten mad looks from mothers in grocery stores because of something I said. It's usually when I'm with my friends because when I'm comfortable around people I don't think about what I say. I only watch my language when I'm in mature situations or around people I don't know. I've never thought about cutting back..sure I've thrown it around once or twice "I should really stop", but I just said that to say it..
Now after reading all of these posts I'm realizing it is true that it makes you look bad or unintelligent and rude. I probably won't stop because I can honestly say that my language isn't that bad. I've heard other people whose cursing has made ME speechless.. and mine isn't comparable.