Wanna take a short questionnaire?

That brings back memories Jack. I didn't know the term, but once you translated I knew exactly what you meant.

I remember as a kid they were quite common, and I even helped my dad to make one once. He'd found a big piece of that woven synthetic canvass in the scrap pile at British Steel, and had brought it home. He used to do a lot of fishing at the time and was a one third owner of a boat, so was well versed in making nets and the hand made wooden tools used to knit and mend nets. He made a new tool for the purpose of making this rug. The tool was nothing clever, just a thin piece of wood that was rounded at one end, and had a tiny hook/groove in the other. He made several of these, one for himself and one each for my older sister and I. Then armed with these tools and some very basic tutoring in their use, we used the wool from old worn out/shrunk or otherwise busted jumpers and we made a rug. It was great. I have no idea what happened to it though.

 

Just to keep you informed of the evolution of the survey, I wish to tell you that I have started analyzing the data provided by the people who took the questionnaire, and some results are already appearing. This is extremely exciting to see what seems to come out of it, and all this would not have been possible without your help, so thank you! I still have to deepen the analysis in order to be able to ascertain things with more relevance, but this is still relatively encouraging!

I will regularly keep you informed of the results, but don't hesitate to contact me by email, or post in this thread if you have further questions.

Thanks again.

 

Thanks from me too!

 

What you are saying is the middle and upper class educated people
When they hit their thumb with a hammer will say
"Oh bother Jonathan" or "Jeezo"
Where a working class uneducated person will say
Ferkin ell, or Jusu Christop (spult wrang fer profanity filter)

Jack McH

 

I too thank you for coming back and advising us with an update
Most come glean the information and go

No Foxtrot Oscar thats a nice chap (Joking)

Jack McH

 

Actually, it may indeed be so, because of the usual speech habits people have. A middle class man may, as you said, say "Oh bother Jonathan" (haha by the way, I did not know this one...) when he hits his finger with a hammer because his status usually prevents him from being vulgar, so a more polite form may be what comes first; but, because of the immediacy of the situation and because of the need to express a strong frustration and pain, he may, more or less consciously, choose to scream the "F-word" for example, which does not correspond to his habits and "education", but which will be more adapted to the expression of a strong and intense, masculine feeling.

This is what I tried to express ealier; there is not necessarily a clear and very defined "working class speech" and an "upper class one". The masculine aspect of what may be perceived as rude working class forms, may be used by upper class people to better convey feelings in certain situations, and working class people may use upper class forms when the situation requires it.

This is extremely exciting and a huge topic to investigate, because what can be true for men, may not apply to women, and this is the very point I will try to deepen thanks to the study I am doing...

If you have any remark about this topic, or if you do not agree with what I say, tell me, any remark is always helpful, and it is why I did not simply glean the information and go, because this forum has been one of the most constructive, where the discussions made me think of aspects of speech I would not have thought of!

Thanks.

 

What happens when someone as posh as the queen hits their thumb with the hammer?

I think they say something like: "What oh? Golly gosh! One appears to have inadvertently walloped ones self with one's tool. Gosh. One expects one shall have a discoloured digit by the morning".

 

Haha!!! The Queen is probably a special case, but I believe this is probably something like that...
Apart from that, as I said, the situation is a little different concerning women, because their very status of women, and the stereotypes (image of the polite women who does not swear, drink alcohol, who raises her children etc...) associated with them can influence their use of profanity... Even if the situation is changing, the stereotypes which were considered normal a few generations ago, and which had been imprinted on everyone's mind for centuries are still present...

But I do believe that even a very posh person can use "bad language" at home, alone, or in certain circumstances...

 

I think there might have been a list of common swear words that we could tick, maybe with how frequently they are used, as I forgot to write several that I use. There are some, such as the c word, which I never, never, never use - it's much worse than the f word. I think there's a big male/female divide on this particular one, as it's very rare to hear a woman using the c word. So the survey could have been designed to find out if there was a hierarchy of badness, and if this was gender-related.

With regard to the prestige issue: I am well-educated, female, probably sound fairly RP and have an excellent vocabulary, but still like swearing (but only in appropriate contexts) and am not convinced it's about prestige - although it might be in a reverse kind of way. For example, if I swear in an educated voice it creates a conflict in the listener's mind and it's harder to stereotype me, whereas if I swore in a strong local accent it would maybe fulfill their expectations of a working class woman. If I actually was an uneducated working-class woman I would probably try hard to avoid swearing so as to avoid being stereo-typed. Maybe that's just me and maybe it's double-dutch!

For me swearing is mainly about colour, emphasis and drama in colloquial speech.
Clueless's points about using language to fit in are spot on, but we don't need to swear to do that, it's more about accent and speech patterns.

 

Heh heh! I bet Prince Philip knows a few choice words, and uses them if he can remember any these days!

 

Thank you for your remarks!

Your idea of a "badness scale of gender-related terms" is a good one. It is partly what the study will aim at analyzing, I will make a list of the most recurrent words for each gender, and try to see if there is a general male and female tendency, see if these can be generationally influenced and so on...

Rating different swear words and seeing how men and women react to the most common expletives would be extremely interesting, but it would dramatically extend the questionnaire, and concision being one major aspect to take into consideration not to bore people and have reliable results, I am wondering if this could be a problem...
But this is the kind of analysis I will consider thanks to the "How do you consider the word f***?". Being probably the most used swear word, I believed that this could more or less be representative of a general appreciation of profanity, at least on an empirical point of view, without considering aspects such as the kind of vocabulary (religious, sexual...), which will be analyzed in another section of the study...

What you say about swearing in an RP accent for example is a really good point, and I think that it also probably depends on the rate and on the kind of words you would use...

The "C-word" is also a very interesting point which, as far as my study goes, is confirmed by the data I got. It does indeed seem to be gender-related, and a lot of women said they would NEVER use it, whereas quite a few men reported using it.

What you say about the relation between swearing and gender/education seems to corroborate the most striking result I got so far, but may I ask how old you are?
If I am asking this, it is because what I found (this is going to be another really long post...) is that generally speaking, my data seem to correspond to the pre-conceived idea we all have of men and women, that is, men tend to swear more and are more tolerant vis-a-vis profanity. However, the only age group for which this pattern is reversed is the 18-25 one. Inside this group, women report to swear relatively much more and are more tolerant than men. The interpretations still need investigating (emancipation, efforts which have been made for three or four decades to tend towards an equal status of men and women...) but this is quite interesting, and could correspond to what you say if you are part of this age group...

 

I use the F word quite a lot really. I really don't like the C word. I never use the C word myself, and find it offensive when I hear anyone else use it. It is a vulgar word, grotesque word. Fiddlesticks is far less offensive than crumbs any day.

 

It's strange because I would use the p-word ( you know, the thing that a rose-thorn does to you) without turning a hair and both words are just anatomical words, so why is one much worse than the other?