What's wrong with swearing?

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 4, Issue 42, 7 April 1987, Page 6

What's wrong with swearing?

An unfortunate barelegged shin took the brunt as a poorly stacked load of wood collapsed, and a cuss rent the air, startling those nearby. ' 'Ooooh!' Wee Jamie was shocked, and the perpetrator of that cuss looked suitably uncomfortable under the little boy's accusing eyes. 'What's wrong with cussing, cursing and swearing?' he asked belligerantly. But are they just harmless expletives? Swearing, most of us would agree. is an ignorant person's prerogative. Hehas no knowledge or command of a language. so uses the same few dirty and profane

words to express and describe everything. Of course there is the odd person who swears because he has the mistaken idea that it makes him look and feel 'big'. But it still comes back to the fact that his knowledge is as narrow as his language. Cursing, we know, belongs to the devil, and a curse is basically consigning the problem into the devil's hands. But cussing? We usually 'let rip' when we are most annoyed. Therefore it is safe to assume cussing is a positive expression of a negative thought. Can it do any harm? And

if so, what harm can it do? My dictionary lumps all three words, cuss, curse, swear, under the heading 'curse'. Therefore there are no larger or lesser cuss or curse words. A cuss is a curse. God created the world and all that is in it — and pronounced it good. So how can we, whom God also created, dare to curse the rest of God's creation, which He saw was good? Cursing then must be a forrfi of deriding and holding in contempt God and His Creation, directly or obliquely. No wonder it is a shock to hear Christians (Christ's Ones) swear!

F.

EVES