There is very much a time and a place for swearing. I could never and I don't thing anyone should ever (unless they want to) stop completely. One of my real pet hates however, is people who, when they talk to you, use '****in' after *every other word*. Its completely unneccesary and makes you sound like a moron.
If you need to emphasise something, then my all means swear, but do it sparingly and where appropriate and it has much more of an effect when you do use it.
Well violence I can agree with but life without porn flicks? He'll make single men everywhere go insane. I agree cussing is often overused but there are times when it is good; example. Kinda conflicting. Plus Team America was hilarious.
I do, however, think that it's just one 14-year-old's attempt to - as he sees it - make his world a better place... can you really blame him for trying? Some people don't ever attempt to make the world better in their whole life, so for this kid to carry a motto of "Leave people better than you found them" at age 14, means he's at least trying to make a difference - even if it isn't a particularly well thought out difference.
That'll be the last club i join. You can't live life without saying something every now and then. Even my dad has cussed before, and he's polite eneough to go to another room when he farts.
I always find it funny when people say swearing is a sign of a limited vocabulary. Surely, specifically choosing not to use swear words is doing exactly that.
A self imposed limit on vocabulary is what that is.
"I won't cuss, swear, use bad language, or tell dirty jokes. Clean language is the sign of intelligence and always demands respect. I will use my language to uplift, encourage and motivate. I will Leave People Better Than I Found Them!"
A quote from the nocussing website.
I've got no problem with people choosing not to cuss and stuffs but I find this quite funny. I think that second sentence would be better put as "Clean language is a sign of intelligence and always demands respect." I still don't agree with the sentence but changing that one word makes it a lot better.
As an example of how clean language does not always demand respect:
"I like to urinate in my pants on purpose because it is a nice feeling, and I do not feel as though it has a great impact on my personal hygiene", said the man.
I certainly don't respect this hypothetical man but by golly did he use a clean sentence!
An example of how 'dirty' sentence can be more uplifting than a clean one:
Clean: "Wow, dude! That lap was great!", exclaimed John.
Dirty: "Wow, dude! That lap was ****ing excellent!", exclaimed John.
The dirty sentence seems to me to be more uplifting and carry slightly greater emotional content than the clean one.
Just because a word can be used badly it doesn't make it a bad word. We should probably eliminate all words that have bad meanings if you follow this logic. Thus this whole thing kinda reminds me of 1984 in a way (the book by George Orwell). No longer will things be bad, they will simply be ungood.
IMHO, it is not any particular word that is 'bad', it is the context in which a given word is used that makes a sentence 'bad'. I agree with the moral of trying to make people better than you found them, I just can't agree that not using swear words is the best method for affecting such a thing.
EDIT: It has just occurred to me though that I think I would perhaps really like to own a 'No Cussing Club' t-shirt.
A classic. I think about 10 years ago, I received this on my voicemail on my work phone. To this day, I have no idea who sent it to me, but we laughed so hard when I played it on the speakerphone.