I was surprised to see this in 'How stuff works' but it's there and quite useful as an intro.
HowStuffWorks "How Swearing Works":
It picks up a number of points I have already made in posts with the 'profanity' or 'swearing' tag, in particular:
"the use of particular expletives can:
* Establish a group identity
* Establish membership in a group and maintain the group's boundaries
* Express solidarity with other people
* Express trust and intimacy (mostly when women swear in the presence of other women)
* Add humor, emphasis or 'shock value'
* Attempt to camouflage a person's fear or insecurity"
Recall that my main emphasis is to help us understand that the middle class prejudices about this form of language are just that and that they may not connect well with truly Christian concerns. About the only connection, really, is about loving neigbour in presentation of ones ideas, but we need to be wary of im/exporting attitudes cross-culturally.
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