I used to swear a lot. I decided to not swear at all (except for possibly mild swears), instead replacing most swears with minced oaths.
My family is Christian and I would get yelled at for swearing even if it just slipped out. So far, I don’t swear unless I’m feeling a strong emotion or acting impulsively, but I’ll usually say things like “F/eff” or “fudge” instead of the F-word.
I like to be “creative”, so my go-tos are usually “Go fudge yourself”, or “What the cluck?”
I might say “mother lover” instead of MF
I’m trying to swear less. Or rather, to swear only where a swear is warranted.
My Dad has a habit of interjecting constant cuss words into everything he says, like “I was at the fucking supermarket right and then I’m just trying to find a fucking tin of beans…” and it’s just so unnecessary, to the point where the swears mean nothing because they are just peppered everywhere. I have to keep reminding him, “Dad, please tone it down a little”
And that’s an easy habit to get into but its exactly what I don’t want to be doing - swearing just as punctuation.
If a situation calls for a swear then I will swear quite happily, “Ouch, my fucking toe!!” and I’ll use the proper word. There’s no need to find childish swear-alternatives.
But I don’t want to sound like I can’t even stop it.
100%. I’m trying to swear less just to avoid the punctuation-level swearing that feels childish to me. But replacement swear words that have the same sentiment feel even more childish and pointless to me.
Yeah I find prepositional F-bombs to be annoyingly juvenile. I remember lots of people in highschool who would get a mind blank and go
“Like…fuggin… Whatever” to connect their thoughts lol.
An “um” is okay. LOL I’ve had to somewhat train this out of myself too… As my mind randomly blanks mid-thought quite often lol.
Personally, I try not to swear even when I stub my toe… but it’s quite difficult sometimes. When I do swear, I want it to be a deliberate decision.