Parochial Complaints about Swearing from Middle Class Social Climbers

Convince the World - or at least yourself - of Your Higher Status by Rebuking Those Who Swear

“Superiority signalling is a deeply unpleasant trait rampant among pretentious social climbers keen on appearing above the common herd.”

Convince the World - or at least yourself - of Your Higher Status

Every now and then another middle class social climber, anxious to scrabble up a rung or two, will start mewling about adults using words they have chosen to find offensive.

Swearing is, of course, many things, cultural, reflexive, a reflection of your upbringing and a means to signal your inclusion in a certain group. Above all, it is a means of communciation and cannot be linked to laziness, IQ or other traits, despite the best efforts of the relentlessly beige.

The lower and upper classes often swear with spectactular vim and vigour. Blue bloods in particular often swear like fucking troopers. Perhaps this is because working class people are not generally ashamed of their social position and aristocrats have already reached the top of any perceived social ladder, and have nothing to prove.

Swearing can also be a beautifully expressive way of making a point with urgent emphasis, a point you often simply cannot make with other words so effectively.

There are many different cultural and class expectations on communication all around the world. Extrapolating your own Hyacinth Bucket* outlook to the rest of the world simply highlights your own unexceptionally parochial viewpoint.

Superiority Signalling

Superiority signalling is a deeply unpleasant trait rampant among pretentious persons keen on appearing above the common herd.

One simple method to promote this notion - at least amongst other middle class social scrabblers - is to feign shock, disgust, or horror or make bizarre, unfounded claims about intelligence or laziness because people place words in a certain order.

However, only amongst other middle class social climbers does this have the desired effect.

Claiming that swearing is “insert insult of choice” is in fact the mark of a provincial social scrabbler with little or no experience of the world outside their own luxury belief classes.

Rude Ranking

Interestingly, the wider the gap in perceived status between swearer and receiver, the more offence is taken. 

So, if I swear at you, I’m behaving as though I consider myself your equal, and if you want to be my superior, that’s what actually offends you. It’s not the word, it’s the slight to your manufactured sense of superiority.

Claims of being offended by swearing are generally made by those who wish to be perceived as ranking higher in the societal hierarchy, while the majority who just do what comes naturally are less affected and much more — well — natural.

The Virtues of Swearing

Researchers Yehuda Baruch and Stuart Jenkins “found that, when used in a non-abusive manner, swearing enables the development of personal relationships among co-workers.”

Obviously, intuition and judgment is required for work situations. If in doubt, at work, best not to swear.

The Vocabulary And IQ Claim Debunked

The beige relentless sometimes claim that swearing shows a lack of intelligence or vocabulary.

That must be why those inveterate fools, Shakespeare and Chaucer, were forced to use profanity. Their feeble brains couldn’t fabricate the appropriate terminology.

Shakespeare, who invented hundreds of words still used today, was particularly fond of whoreson, a term I rather like and am going to try to repopularise, because bastard is so overused in modern parlance.

And Chaucer was a veritable feast of profanity, the likes of which would cause your Aunty Hyacinth to reach for the smelling salts.

Studies have even concluded that those of us who swear may be more intelligent than the Beige Battalions.

I’m not claiming to be a modern day Chaucer or Shakespeare, simply making the point that my lexicon is not limited, thus if I choose to swear with verve and vigour, it is indeed through choice, not a paucity of vocabulary.

Swearing is Good For You

Swearing has been shown to reduce pain - although apparently that only works with traditional swearing, making up new words doesn’t have the same effect.

And some studies show that those of us who swear are generally more honest and more intelligent than those who don’t indulge.

Throwing Your Words Around

I’m from Glasgow. You can take the girl out of Glasgow but not the Glasgow out of the girl. Snobbery, in Pollokshaws, could mean as little as using words of more than two syllables and always saying please and thank you, and it could earn you a lot worse than a curse word. One way to fit in with my cohort was to learn to swear.

We were really fucking poor. My mother didn’t swear, but that was by design. She’d learned that snobbery was rife while training to be a nurse, and altered her speech patterns to avoid censure by social climbers. She had to pretend to be a little less working class than she was if she wanted to be taken seriously by those with the power to hire and fire.

As a result, I was instructed not to swear, until I learned to ignore that direction as a means of self-protection.

It was an absolutely normalised cultural expectation that we should swear. And not for lack of intelligence, of course.

I dare you to claim that the Scots (as a race) are stupid. Hardy, stoic, creative and courageous, certainly. Perhaps somewhat battle ready at times. Stupid, no.

Flex Your Reflex

Swearing is generally perfectly harmless habit and simple reflex at times too.

Just as some cultures queue politely, some gesticulate wildly, some are strict rule followers - some swear.

Weegies do so with panache, often caiming that swear words are a form of punctuation.

But even among my ain folk there was always a certain type of Scot determined to disdain the swearing majority. The self-important can’t be avoided in any culture.

Here’s one of the world’s most famous Scots on the poetry of swearing.

Sometimes, like Billy, I swear for pith and moment, sometimes for comic effect, and sometimes I just fucking feel like it.

As the Big Yin proposed, there is a certain poetry at times to a really good swear.

To Swear Or Not To Swear?

I don’t swear much in my writing or in general these days, for all kinds of reasons.

I’ve travelled a bit, and my mode of communication has modified over the years. I’ve had to navigate new worlds, new class systems, new friendship circles.

The odd swear word is generally accepted from my mouth by even the most disdainfully pretentious, because I’m that foreign and funny (peculiar) Scottish woman, but a lapse into abundant profanity might not have helped me in my work or other circles, or my children for that matter to navigate their world. It’s not worth testing the theory, for the most part.

I’ve worked in jobs where swearing was considered unacceptable, and if someone is paying my wages I generally follow their rules. And I want to reach as wide an audience as I can when writing, and am aware that some people look at a swear word and choose offence.

I have sadly observed that the same sort of people who are completely content with shocking behaviour in others and will turn a blind eye to great cruelty or inequity, will nevertheless find it in themselves to make a fuss about a string of letters placed in a certain order.

But my choice generally not to swear rather than be misunderstood by social climbers, simpletons and the determinedly offended in no way reflects a fear or hatred of swearing, or a misunderstanding of its purpose and place in the world.

Because swearing is a pefectly valid means of communication.

Many Things To Many People

Swearing is, of course, many things, cultural, reflexive, a reflection of your upbringing and a means to signal your inclusion in a certain group and can also be a be a robustly expressive way of making a point with urgent emphasis, a point you often simply cannot make with other words so effectively.

It has been linked to lowering the pain you are experiencing, higher IQ, and some studies even say it can “enable the development of personal relationships among co-workers”.

While some may indeed swear due to a lack of vocabulary or intelligence, to make that assumption marks you as biased and somewhat dimwitted yourself.

Worse, it shows that you have no understanding that your own cultural bubble cannot be extrapolated to the world at large. Your personal like or dislike of swearing is not a universal, and it is not defensible except as an opinion and personal choice.

To be frank though, some people just sound silly swearing, although I’d never tell them that.

And I don’t judge people for not swearing.

I mean, you can’t help your upbringing, can you?

In Conclusion

The argument against swearing can be distilled down to this: “I personally don’t like it.”

To which the only riposte required is “Well, I do.”

As one of my favourite actors said: “There is no such thing as too much swearing. Swearing is just a piece of linguistic mechanics. The words in-between are the clever ones.” - Peter Capaldi

Writing someone off based solely on the use of profanity is - genuinely - your loss.

And if you find yourself in disagreement and wish to signal some fauxrage, feel free to sniff the smelling salts, flutter the fan and get back to organising your collection of complaint letters. 

I find your bias very offensive.

But I won’t fucking let that stop me.

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*Hyacinth Bucket was a fictional character in a long running UK series. She was known for being an embarrassing snob who was quite oblivious as to her own ignorance and penchant for making shocking social faux pas.

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