rated for swearing

It's one of those things, I suppose it's a problem, but only because I can't understand why it is.

If that makes sense.

At SoulintheCity this year, we had certain rules we had to follow. For those who don't know, SoulintheCity was an evangelistic urban mission in the streets of London. In plain English (rather than Christianese), it was several thousand young Christians camping across London and working on community projects with the local churches across the city, doing nice things like painting fences and clearing parks so as to make the citizens of London feel nice and rosy:). Equally important, it was about walking the talk - getting out and helping people, serving people instead of sitting around talking about it, getting out and talking to our neighbours instead of waxing about how we should love them. We went out there wanting to show what the church of Christ is really about, knowing that what we did would reflect back on that church. Which is why, I assume, they put down a no-swearing rule for the mission teams.

It's not that I'm an unpleasant person. I'm not cruel or deliberately vile to anyone, and if I am that I will back down straightaway and apologise. For the most part, I'm quite a nice person. I will admit though, that I do swear like a trooper.

I know that a lot of people strongly dislike the kind of language that I use on a daily basis. A lot of people find it offensive, which is fair enough, I don't have a problem with that. I will glady curb my language to avoid annoying someone, difficult though it may be, because I'd rather change the way I talk than offend someone just for the sake of defending my 'right' to curse. I'm worst at college, my slightly-less-liberal-than-last-year's teachers don't smile on swearing, but (to coin a phrase), my college friends simply don't give a shit, and thus the air turns blue. I've been hanging out with Christians an awful lot more this year, which is fantastic, and means that I'm generally swearing a lot less, because I'm getting used to not doing it.

It says in the Bible that we should use the gift of speech for god's glory, and not talk coarsely and say unkind things. Which I'm all for. But, there's this niggling thought...

At SoulintheCity, I tried very hard to speak clean. Aside from the fact that there was a red-card behaviour thing in place on the teams, I genuinely wanted to be a decent ambassador and all that, give people the right impression of the church. So there I was, exchanging shit for sugar (hah!), bollocks for bollards (hah!) and bugger for bother (nah that one's not funny) and feeling very pleased that I was managing to conquer my age-old bad habit.
One night, I was getting piggy-backed down the gravel path to the campsite, when the person who was carrying me dropped me. Barefoot (as I tend to be in the summer), I landed heavily on a very sharp stone.
And, with uncharacteristic self-control, I yelled "FUUUDGE!!!" at the top of my lungs. A guy walking past actually applauded. Again, I felt quite pleased with myself.

But then I started thinking. With all the different nationalities on our campsite, all the different languages being spoken, those not familiar with English swearwords who had heard me yell that would have assumed that I'd just hollered an obscenity to the night sky. So, if I say something with the same sentiment as a swearword, in the same tone of voice, in the same situation as if I was swearing, what's the difference. I change the last few letters of a word and all of a sudden I'm not doing anything wrong?

I believe that words are words. What you say using words can be incredibly powerful, but the words themselves are just letters, just sounds strung together. If I'm angry, if I'm upset, if I'm frustrated and want people to listen to me, what's the difference if I say 'fuck' or 'fudge?' The words themselves are not bad. If you were learning English, there's nothing about the word 'shit' that would repulse you because it would just be another word, like 'cat' or 'bowl'. Are we only offended by swearwords because we've been told that they're bad?

But then... I've hung out with some people whose language has been pretty ripe, people who make me look moderate and well-spoken, and I've heard people take words and give them horrible and disgusting meanings. I suppose people don't like swearwords because they're the ones that get the blame. Everything that's crude and disgusting gets attached to these words, and we hate them by association.

I find myself objecting to the idea that some words are good and some are bad, that there are some words that you shouldn't use. But then... If my best friend casually refers to me as her bitch, I'm not offended because to me, it's just a word. No swearword, no F word or B word or C word can make me flinch, but if someone calls me stupid, or a moron, it stings, because it's a pet peeve of mine. You can call me fat, but call me a hypocrite and that's gonna sting.. The word 'dyke' is just a word to me, but to someone else it might be the word that sums up a lifetime of prejudice. The word 'nigger' is just a word to me but how much it means to other people.

My very meandering conclusion is that words are just words. But people are people, and we're not as straightforward. We attach all these meanings to words, they have power because we give them power, and it's easy for me to dismiss them, but I have words that I don't like, just as other people don't like mine. But I still maintain that it's what you say, not the words you say it with that counts.

By the way, as far as swearing on this blog goes, I still really don't want to offend anyone. However, this is my space for my thoughts and my thoughts are not always pretty. I'm never gonna be deliberately gratuitous but if I can't express myself here, I can't anywhere. If I do ever say something that you think is out of order, you have my sincere apologies, but that's all I can do.