h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Briefly, to maintain the rhythm of speech best suited to express the feelings of the speaker. To make the sentence scan.

Also to convey the sense, on occasion, that the speaker is
'lost for words'. That in the circumstances, eloquence would be a sham.

Hence the substitution, amongst the pure of speech, of substitute cuss-words. Most famously, Ned Flanders' "Diddly!".

Apparently in the U.S. Marine Corps drill sergeants aren't allowed to swear at recruits anymore thanks to Mothers of America. No more are the days when R. Lee Ermey could scream, "Pyle, you climb like old people F**k!" So they cuss is a kind of code. Instead of, "Godd**n f**kin' piece of s**t!" now they have to say things like, "No good friggin' piece of trash!" I know it means essentially the same thing but I feel so disillusioned.

I'm sorry I missed your post Little Richardjohn, I must have been particularly busy 5 weeks ago.

I do find myself wondering about Tourettes, and whether or not some of us have it in a mild form. The main reason I wrote the entry is that I swear like a trooper at times. I get very depressed by people who unthinkingly reject such a rich, flexible, elegant, almost sinuous part of our linguistic toolset.

Most of the time I find that people who say that swearing is a sign of a limited vocabulary are actually listening with a limited imagination.

Ben

But does it mean the same thing, Divine_right? I am actually shocked that the Marine Sargeants have been bowdlerised.

Can't they plead the first ammendment?

B

It's often a perfect example of Tmesis* too, the act of inserting one word inside another, for example 'abso-blooming-lutely'.

* Te'mee-sis

Is that what it's called? Tum-diddly-esis?
Which is all about rhythm, of course. making the meter of the statement fit the emotion.
Shakespear and any stand-up comic would understand, Mary whitehouse wouldn't.
Rhythm is the key, I think, as it is to a lot of what we do.