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This Is Us
I’m a Grown Man, and I’m Uncomfortable Dropping F-Bombs
How words affect our relationships, our environment, and ourselves
When I was six or seven years old, I said the word “darn” one day and my grandfather reprimanded me.
He was thoroughly religious, an inveterate churchgoer, the sort of man who spreads the gospel in the Food Lion checkout line. My mother says he knew the Bible better than any minister. I tried to explain to him that “darn” isn’t a bad word.
“Yes, it is,” he said in his rolling mountain accent. “When you say that word, you’re saying the other word in your mind, and that’s what God hears.”
Kids grow up being told certain words are “bad” and that to utter them is “swearing” or “cursing” — or, if you’re from the South like me, “cussing.” Yet we’re never told why.
In that moment, I realized cussing was not just a thing adults do that kids can’t, like staying up past nine or eating black walnut ice cream for dinner.
In that moment, I understood the power of words, spoken and unspoken.
Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, complained in a 1697 essay about how much the English language was changing. Grammar was changing. Spelling was changing. About…
