The F word

Most people nowadays take a very laid-back attitude to swearing. So what if someone swears? It's a good way of letting off steam and much healthier than bottling up your feelings and letting them fester.

I've never been a natural swearer. I'll get annoyed or frustrated about something but I don't swear, mainly because the usual swearword these days is "fucking" and I would rather be more inventive than saying fuck this or fuck that every five minutes.

Also I'm aware there are still plenty of people who avoid using swearwords as being a lazy way of talking, so I tend not to use swearwords myself in case someone starts bristling.

When I was young "fucking" was never used as a swearword. It was merely a colloquial word for sex that was frowned upon by the grown-ups as being in very bad taste and NOT TO BE USED.

But we had plenty of swearwords and disparaging remarks, far more than we have today, some of them quite original and colourful - like "jump off a cliff" or "get stuffed" or "you're a waste of space".

I keep expecting the word "fucking" to lose its allure and gradually fall out of use, but on the contrary it's as popular as ever. It looks like it's fucking well with us for years to come.

Tasteless

When I was growing up the idea of "bad taste" was commonplace and most people took care not to do or say anything that was "in bad taste".

My parents were constantly telling me I shouldn't do this or that because it would be in bad taste. Anything sexually too explicit, anything that insulted the dead, anything too critical of other people's appearance. All sorts of things were frowned on.

Today the idea of bad taste seems to be fading rapidly. Politicians and celebrities and journalists say the most outrageous things and get away with it. They might be briefly criticised but that's it. On social media there's no idea of bad taste at all and people say exactly what they want, including rape threats, death threats and all sorts of violent intimidation.

In fact for many people nowadays "bad taste" doesn't even refer to questionable behaviour, but only to an unfashionable personal choice, like orange wallpaper or shag pile rugs.

Some people scoff at the idea of bad taste and admire those who "tell it like it is". In practice this just seems to mean pouring out streams of invective against anybody and everybody, and not caring who you're upsetting or belittling.

But I was so thoroughly conditioned by my upbringing to avoid anything that was in bad taste that it's virtually impossible to change. I'm still very careful not to say or do anything controversial, anything that goes beyond the bounds of polite socialising. There's no way I could simply blurt out whatever comes to mind, however shocking or repulsive.

Other people's over-the-top comments never cease to amaze me.