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Why does the expletive "fuck" have the bad rep that it does?

What's the worst cuss word?

  • Fudge

    Votes: 12 10.2%

  • Sugar

    Votes: 5 4.2%

  • Heck

    Votes: 13 11.0%

  • Dang

    Votes: 5 4.2%

  • Fiddlesticks

    Votes: 23 19.5%

  • @#&?!

    Votes: 18 15.3%

  • Thor: The Dark Word

    Votes: 63 53.4%
  • Total voters
    118
FliX

FliX

Master of the Reality Stone
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
9,879
Metro Detroit
I don't swear a lot, not more than others anyway...
Either way I just used "how the fuck" in a[ I feel] rather mild manor and context in a comment in our corporate intranet.
And someone I know reasonably well and get along with very well reached out to tell me how it made her uncomfortable to see me drop an f-bomb.
Why is fuck considered worse than shit, damn, hell, heck, etc.?
I don't get it...

In general I always thought it is laughable how fuck is beeped out on tv and radio... Like who is being protected here? I am convinced every per-schooler knows more cuss words than me.
 
Clefargle

Clefargle

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,131
Limburg
Puritanical pearl clutchers are the only reason it's censored. It hurts nobody and it's a fucking great expletive
 
Skade

Skade

Member
Oct 28, 2017
8,869
The general concept of bad language and the prude nature of the UK and USA. That probably the gist of it.

Each swears words have their own weird origins. I'm still flabbergasted as to why french canadian worst swear words are about church stuff and architecture.
 
Musubi

Musubi

Unshakable Resolve - Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,620
Cause its fun to say and people don't want you to have fun.
 
RPGam3r

RPGam3r

Member
Oct 27, 2017
13,535
Bc it's often used in a negative attack? "Fuck you" levels up the aggression of word compared to some of the other words you mentioned.
 
Joe

Joe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,627
when i was a kid, I picked up on all the swears like damn and shit and ass pretty early on, but I never heard a single person ever say the word Fuck until I was well into middle school, so I just thought it was, like, a new curse word that had been invented relatively recently.
 
Small Red Boy

Small Red Boy

â–˛ Legend â–˛
Member
May 9, 2019
2,680
Yeah it's weird where in TV in the states you don't hear many "fuck" but a lot of "bitch" or "shit".
 
Sabretooth

Sabretooth

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,069
India
I thought it was inherently understood that 'fuck' is considered more extreme because it refers to a sexual act, while shit, piss, damn, hell, heck, etc. do not and are considered 'safer' around kids.

I mean, understandably there were no kids on your corporate intranet, but it's still a tier higher on the pyramid of swears.

Edit: Also thought it worth mentioning that in India, all the other words are not considered swears, and plenty of parents even teach their kid to say 'shit' as an exclamation when something goes wrong. I think many Indians would be amused to learn that damn and hell are considered swears in the West.

Fuck and all sexual-related swears though, including bastard, are considered quite offensive here, however, because of the Indian taboo on sex.
 
Sunster

Sunster

The Fallen
Oct 5, 2018
10,021
This reminds me lmao in 3rd grade my friend told me that his dad told him the very worst swear word was "white devil" 🤣🤣🤣 obviously i didn't get this at the time but i guess his parents were big time racists
 

Kumquat

Member
Jan 23, 2018
787
Back when I used to work in an office environment I remember once my computer started acting up on me and I looked at it and gave a very quizzical not too loud, "What the fuck?" to my computer screen. Someone reported me for that. Like WTF?
 
sladeums

sladeums

Member
Jun 12, 2019
655
Omaha, NE
hahah yeah
you UK lads come to the US and start casually flinging around "cunt" and eventually some lady gonna clock yer ass u never see it coming

you wanna see a woman's head spin Exorcist direct it at her … lemme take cover first
 
Kadzork

Kadzork

Has got mad skills!!
Member
Oct 27, 2017
16,870
Sunster said:
This reminds me lmao in 3rd grade my friend told me that his dad told him the very worst swear word was "white devil" 🤣🤣🤣 obviously i didn't get this at the time but i guess his parents were big time racists
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wb9j6.jpg
 
HStallion

HStallion

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
62,262
Got to use it conjunction with another milder word. Think "fuckstick" or "fuckhead". Its like putting cream and sugar in your dark coffee.
 
Paroni

Paroni

Member
Dec 17, 2020
3,422
One of my favorite things about my native Finnish language is that "Satan" (Saatana in Finnish) is an usual expletive. People yelling stuff like "Oh Satan" when hurting themselves or calling cool things "Satan's awesome" is commonplace.
 
werezompire

werezompire

Zeboyd Games
Verified
Oct 26, 2017
11,393
Swear words are all based on what a particular society deems taboo. Like the F-word is considered far worse in the US than it is in Britain. In the US, the F-word is considered the harshest of swear words that are still regularly used by some people, so yeah, you shouldn't be throwing it around casually in a work environment.

I know a dad who swears regularly and wouldn't think twice about swearing around the house, but if one of his kids said a racial slur? That would be the ultimate swear and get them in so much trouble. Which honestly, makes a lot of sense when it comes to curse word severity.

As far as the F-word in particular, you're taking an action that's supposed to be very private & special between 2 people who love each other and making it very public & vulgar. It's also used as an insult akin to telling someone that you wish they were dead. That's more severe than a lot of curse words that basically translate out to "I'm annoyed."
 
El Bombastico

El Bombastico

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
36,055
At this point I'd say "cunt" had replaced "fuck" the uber-taboo cuss (only here in the US, of course).
 
Shadow of the Void

Shadow of the Void

Member
Feb 9, 2018
2,637
"@#&?!"

Excuse me? How DARE you!

In all seriousness, though, I don't know about other languages but in English swear words are almost entirely either sexual in nature (either slang for sex itself or for the genitals and anus), involve excretory functions (e.g., "shit" and "piss"), or have religious/blasphemous connotations (e.g., "damn," "hell," taking the Lord's name in vain). Also, the Bible says that swearing is bad, so that probably also influenced Western objections towards swearing. Given societal hangups over sex and the human body and the importance of religion throughout history, plus how the words themselves are often used in aggressive or abusive ways, it makes sense that these words are themselves taboo. Whether they should be taboo or not, eh, I don't really give a fuck. Doesn't hurt me any. But I can understand the history of the swearing taboo.
 
HStallion

HStallion

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
62,262
Shadow of the Void said:
"

@#&?!

"

Excuse me? How DARE you!

In all seriousness, though, I don't know about other languages but in English swear words are almost entirely either sexual in nature (either slang for sex itself or for the genitals and anus), involve excretory functions (e.g., "shit" and "piss"), or have religious/blasphemous connotations (e.g., "damn," "hell," taking the Lord's name in vain). Also, the Bible says that swearing is bad, so that probably also influenced Western objections towards swearing. Given societal hangups over sex and the human body and the importance of religion throughout history, plus how the words themselves are often used in aggressive or abusive ways, it makes sense that these words are themselves taboo. Whether they should be taboo or not, eh, I don't really give a fuck. Doesn't hurt me any. But I can understand the history of the swearing taboo.
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As far as I've seen and heard most swear words are fairly similar in origin and same for insults. If anything curses and swears in English are pretty basic.
 
ManNR

ManNR

Member
Feb 13, 2019
2,966
The sound of the word also influences the taboo of a word beyond it's meaning.

Also, you are at work cursing in company chat and you also said you don't often curse so the instance carries more weight than from someone who drops f-bombs all the time.
 
Pocky4Th3Win

Pocky4Th3Win

Member
Oct 31, 2017
4,106
Minnesota
Cursing comes pretty naturally to me. I don't see it as bad as it is seen in the public mindset and often especially at work I change the way I talk to not be dropping F bombs. My wife hates it because I will use the F word when I don't mean to be insulting or cursing.
 
Saganator

Saganator

Member
Oct 26, 2017
7,096
I find it weird when people replace the word with something like "frick". We all know what you mean to say, god knows too, just say it if you want to
 
ascii42

ascii42

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,798
Because that is it's purpose, to be worse than those other words. In order to have dynamic range of profanity there must be some words worse than others.
Crap and shit mean the same thing in a literal sense, but sometimes things are crap and sometimes things are shit.
 
Omegasquash

Omegasquash

Member
Oct 31, 2017
6,201
teruterubozu said:
Because sex is bad
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This. It was long seen as "the worst" of the curse words, but that was a time and a place where not paying homage to The Lord was problematic too.

The only rule we have in our home here with the kids is that language can't be derogatory, as in, it's not meant to directly insult anyone and it's not inherently sexist/racist. As an example, my son isn't allowed to call someone a "bitch" when playing games because that's sexist in nature, but he is allowed to say "what the fuck". And that's only when the friends he's playing with are using headphones. The way I see it, when playing online, everyone is in everyone else's house, so their rules do apply. Not my call to say whether or not "fuck" is a word that's allowed in someone else's house. And racist/sexist words aren't allowed here, so his friends can't use that language here, so to speak.

I'm fortunate in that my children have two homes with parents that do not tolerate hateful language, but who also understand that "FUCKING HELL" is an acceptable response when you stub your toe.
 
Pankratous

Pankratous

Member
Oct 26, 2017
9,268
This must be a US thing. In my work we say Fuck all the time, among colleagues, customers and so on.
 
The Masked Mufti

The Masked Mufti

The Wise Ones
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
3,989
Scotland
Clefargle said:
Puritanical pearl clutchers are the only reason it's censored. It hurts nobody and it's a fucking great expletive
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Not really. Well, partially. But every language needs a set of words that show extreme anger/hate/insult etc. Though these days fuck has lost most of its negativity.

Take cunt for example. My understanding is that you could be fired from your workplace for calling a colleague a cunt in America.
 
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