Pasting my comment from BlogHer Forums. Because I can.
Comment by Melkist posted Wed, 2006/08/23 - 4:36pm
Having grown up in a very highly, extremely, and Superlatively Mormon household, I had the squeakiest clean vocabulary known to man. If there was an award for most creative UN-swearing, I would have won it every time. Even words like "butt" and "crap" and "suck" were totally out of bounds in our house.
The result, of course, is that I grew into an adult who can, at the drop of a hat, flip the switch on my inner potty mouth and use curse words so foul that even a sailor might have to look some of them up on Wikipedia.
Of course, I'm extraordinarily careful to watch what I say around my precocious 3 year old, at play groups, and when around relatives or acquaintances with sensitive ears. The rest of the time, I reserve strong language for highly appropriate situations - like dropping the hammer on my foot, or stepping into a puddle of cat puke while blearily heading for the coffee pot at 6am.
I struggled with the blog issue once I realized some of my family reads it, and I was hesitant to use language that might show them a side of me they have never seen. In the end, though, I went with the most judicious path. I use swears the same way I would if I was having coffee with a girlfriend and our kids were playing in the next room. Only for emphasis, or if it's funny, and in tones that don't draw undue attention to the inherent "naughty-factor" of it all.
Because it's not the sixth grade, and using "fuck" is only worth it to me for shock value if it happens to be part of a sentence that also includes words like "elderly grandmother", "3-legged-dog" or, maybe "clown-car funeral procession".
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