swearing

When I was young I heard the f-word often, along with the gesture that went with it, so to stop me from using it my father told me a secret. He said that there was something worse....you stick up your pinky finger and say "fitzel bitzel". Worked for years till I realized he made it all up.

Anon

My parents designated the words "hockey puck"as their swear word for idiot, jerk (insert truly bad word here). I grew up believing that hockey puck was a bad word not to be used in polite company.

Tory

I thought assassin was a bad word for some reason (maybe because it has ass in it?)

Alberto Richardson

When I started middle school, I heard these guys calling each other "bastards." I thought they were saying "pastors." I wondered why calling someone a "pastor" would be a bad thing.

Boomer

I thought there were some swear words so bad if you said them you would go to jail!

Mexicrat

I thought that swear words were called square words and that they looked like a square when you wrote them down.

ali

I believed that all swear words were modern inventions and that someone sat in an office creating them, just like someone else who created jokes, *all* of them.

Lesley

I used to believe there was a legal age limit to swearing.

sarah

There were many crap definitions of rude words flying around my school. Twat was a pregnant goldfish, bastard was a male dog (go figure) and we thought that the worst word in the world sounded like "Rehhnaharn" because an angry Italian bloke once said it to Bugs Bunny in a cartoon.

Anon

i was never very religious and even when i was very young, i doubted the existence of god. but one day, when i was about four, i was at my friend's house and she had given me this very small chair to sit in. i said something like "i dont want to sit in that f--king chair!" she gasped and told me that i had sinned and said god would hate me forever if i ever said a curse word again.
i didn't say another curse word till i was eleven.

Anon

BY age six i was pretty sure i knew all the "bad" words i wasnt suppose to use. So one day while riding in the car a bee flew in the back window and as i was trying to kill it i said "come here you cock sucker!!" I only screamed this once or twice though because it shocked my parents so much the car came to a stop & they just kind of looked at me drop jawed. i got the "what did you jst say?" bit and when i repeated it again was informed it was a bad word...BUT confused (cock was a rooster, sucker was a lolly pop, right?) asked why... and never really got a proper explanation. it wasnt untill years later i figured out what those looks were really all about LOL

J

My mother adamantly hates the word 'fart' and growing up we had to replace it with 'glink'. I just thought that was the way everyone said it. Imagine the looks I got when I used it in front of the rest of the normal population!! "Holy cow, that was one loud glink!!"

Jude Horrocks

In my first year of teaching, I had one of my second graders come up to me and tell me that Johnny had called him the "E" word. Knowing the "A,B,C,D and F" words in their entirety, I had NO idea what the "E" word was. So I asked Johnny to whisper in my ear what the dreaded "E" word was... so Johnny said. "Idiot". I about died laughing on the spot.

Ms. C

I used to believe that you had a 'swear line' in your body. Each time you swore, you filled up a space on the line. Once you ran out of space, you died! Luckily Biology cleared it up.

Anon

I thought I had invented the word "asshole". At this point I was too young to have heard it on TV. A few years later I was allowed to watch some films and TV with swearing in and when the word "asshole" was used, I was delighted. I assumed that in the few years since I had invented it, its use had become more widespread to the point that it had entered the English language. Go me!

Lady M

When I was a kid my father swore so much at other drivers that I believed it was a neccesary part of driving. So when I'd ride my bigwheel up and down our street I would spout obscenities, which embarassed my father so much he hasn't sworn since 1984.

Anon

When I was little my mom told me that flipping somebody off meant "go to Hell" and that I shouldn't do it. My friend and I decided that if we pointed our middle finger downward instead, it would mean "go to Heaven" and that it was a compliment. I think I was about 16 before I learned the truth.

Kyla

I thought if you said a swear word the police would track you down and arrest you but if you said 'oh my goodness' after the swear word that it would take it back.

M

In our house we used to have a medical dictionary called the Funk & Wagnell. If me or my brother had something wrong with us Mum or Dad would tell us to "look it up in the Funk & Wagnell" but of course to our ears we heard "look it up you f**ken wagnell". We always wondered what a wagnell was and why our parents were swearing at us.

Leisa

When I was about six, I always head people talking about the "F word." Since I didn't know the word in question, I assumed that they meant "fart." Now my teacher was very strict, and you got in big trouble for saying it. One day I was sent home with a letter, and upon seeing the envelope attached to my shirt, she asked "what did you do?" My reply? "I said the F word." My mother turned white and started to panic..until she opened the note, that is.

Emily