Hi, This is Wayne Brown from Life Back On Track. Welcome to the latest episode.

Now, before I get into this, I want to give you a heads up. I'm going to be exploring swear words, slang words, profanity, whatever you want to call it, and I just want you to be aware that I'll be using these words. So if you're offended by hearing these words, you may want to skip this episode. For those of you that are willing to listen, I want to explore this and not just the use of the words but the receiving of the words.

Now I'll tell you a little bit of stories, too. How I first learned about the power of swear words, and I was around the age of 17. I was sitting in the kitchen of the family household, eating a meal with my two sisters and my little brother, and my mother and father were in the lounge room and they were discussing whatever they were discussing, and we were happily eating dinner and then very loudly, my mother yelled out, "Fuck off, Darrell!"

 Instantly I knew a line had been crossed. I had never heard my mother using any profanity whatsoever in my life up until that point. So I knew then two things. One; swear words can carry power, and two; there's a time and a place for it.

Now, growing up, I obviously hung around in various groups where we used slang or profanity, and for me there's two classes of those sorts of words. There's slang words which are, you know, things like shit, bloody, that sort of thing where they don't carry a lot of weight, but they do border on being offensive to some people.

When you go to the other end of the spectrum and you're using words like fuck and things like that, it becomes a little more divisive because people either use swear words and are comfortable with them or they're not. Now, ultimately, they are just another word. So when people say they don't like profanity, they're referring to a word, and it's like saying 'strawberry' is a swear word. It's not so much the word itself that people take exception to, it's where the context is used or the framework.

There's people who they say comedy shouldn't have swearing in it. The whole point of comedy as an example of the use of swear words, is to provoke people, to be able to think, to get them to see things, to confront situations. As far as I'm concerned, if a comedian wants to use profanity in their act, let them. Their job is to point out things that we need to address, that we need to look at. So if a comedian makes a joke that's racist, for example, someone could take that as racist. Or we could go, "Let's look at that joke and why it's upset people and what we can do about it to change people's mindsets".

So, the same with profanity. There are times where I feel, you may feel the same, where you are absolutely justified in using profanity because you are at the end of your tether. You've had enough. You've snapped. The lines been crossed. That's it. I've had enough. I'm bringing out the big guns, and then you let people know our lines been crossed by using the profanity.

So both ends of the spectrum are the use of the words, which used in the right context and the right situation can carry a lot of weight like, if I was telling a story from my past that was particularly emotionally charged, I would inadvertently use profanity, and I may not mean to, it's just that that situation back then carried a lot of weight. It carried a lot of emotional intensity, and that is the language that best explains how I was feeling at the time.

So for those instances, I believe profanities should be accepted and allowed in, and in a way encouraged. I find if I'm doing a workshop, if people know that they can use whatever word fits and they're able to use profanity, it's a lot more cathartic. They're are a lot more able to get things out. So, therefore, profanity is a good thing. So for people that have people used profanity around them, if you do take exception to it and that's okay, you're allowed to ask yourself why you're taking exception to it.

Now For myself, there's very few words that are off limits. The only one that tends to get me is if I'm listening to the radio and they're playing a hip hop song and the artist is of, uh, African American or whatever term you want to use, and they use the term 'nigger', now for me, I baulk at that, and it's probably the only word that I do because of the history associated with the use of that word. So it was used as a derogatory term and used to put people down. It was used to keep them mentally enslaved. So for me, I don't like the use of it. Now, if someone's going to use it, I'm not going to get all upset, but if I'm listening to a song like that on the radio, I'll change it because for me it carries a little too much weight, but anything else is pretty much on the table.

So my question for you in regard to this topic of the use of swear words or questions, actually is "In what context is swearing okay with me?" "In what context is it not okay with me?" "What emotions are brought up when I hear particular words used?" "What memories are triggered when I hear particular words used?"

For myself, I know there's certain memories, certain information that is triggered from various swear words, and that's OK because I don't carry a huge amount of weight with myself. I'm aware that there's people that don't like swearing. However, like I said, it's just a word. It's the weight behind it. If you're using that language to intimidate people, too put them down, to keep them in their place, to ridicule them, to basically inflict some sort of harm. Then I believe people should take exception to it. Then they should call out the person that's using it.

There are times where they might be upset, and they're using those words to be able to articulate their frustration or their disappointment or their anger or whatever it is in those instances. I believe swearing is okay as long as you consider other people. So you're not swearing at the top of your voice type thing. You're not swearing where it's easily overheard by children. As long as you consider those sorts of things. I don't believe swearing has a an issue for most people.

I do recall I watched a mini documentary, I suppose you'd call it from Penn and Teller, the Vegas magicians. They did a number of mini documentaries, and they looked at one which was swearing, and they were looking at the context of swearing and where you put the emphasis and all of this sort of thing. And they were talking to this lady whose mission it was to get rid of swearing. So she went around promoting non swearing areas and all of this sort of thing. What was interesting was she had a particular phrase that she liked to use. Now I'm relying on memory here, so I may be a little incorrect, however, I know I'm going to be mostly correcting my recall.

She used the word "Santa Vunca" and Penn broke that down as to where the origins were, what it meant, and basically she was swearing in another language. So all she had done was transfer the swearing in English to another language, which made her feel she could use it because it didn't make sense to her. However, for the people of that language, it's then going to make sense and could potentially offend them, especially as you've stolen their language to suit your own needs.

So we have to be wary with whether we swear or we don't. We pick our moments when were swearing and it's OK if you're in context and the situation is right, swearing is okay.

So that's what I wanted to talk about, was the use of those sorts of words now for myself. I know I don't swear a lot unless I'm a little bit frustrated or a little bit annoyed. Then sometimes the 'F' word comes out, but usually that's about as harsh as I get. And it's not very often. The thing I offer you at the moment is if you want to give me your feedback on this, because I would like to hear what people think about this if you've been brave enough to listen, especially if you're someone who doesn't like swearing because I'd like to hear your side of it. I'm always interested in hearing other people's viewpoints. So if you want, you can either send an email to admin@life-on-track.com and just let me know your feedback, your views. That would be really cool.

Or, if you want, there's a link below in the show notes where you can send a quick ninety second verbal message. You get a chance to check it out before you send it, so you can make sure you've got in there what you want to say, and we can have a dialogue because I can actually reply to your message. So I'd love to have a dialogue about this and exploring the words that we use for our frustration, our disappointment. So, yeah, that was basically it.

I hope it gets you thinking a little bit about the use of it or the challenges you may have about hearing it and understanding that it's not the word itself. It's the context that we have to bear in mind anyway. That was I just wanted to talk about this because on the weekend we were talking as a group about swearing, and some people were saying they were really offended by and they didn't like it and other people were like, It's fine, it's fine. So it was very interesting hearing everyone's different viewpoints. So anyway, that's it for today. We'll catch you on the next one. Look after yourself and remember, here's to a good life

You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out. 

You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE 

Thanks for listening.