Cursing

Steven Pinker is a well-known psychologist who has done a lot of research in linguistics. Over at The New Republic, he has a fascinating article on swearing, why we do it, its history, censorship, and so on. I have always been interested in why some people make such a big deal out of it. I do not swear frequently, and I try to be careful about who is around when I do, but I have never found it personally offensive. As Pinker mentions in his article, I wouldn't want to take away all of the power of swearing by making it mundane and commonplace thereby losing something from our language, a way to stress something or express great emotion. At the same time, I do think some people make too big a deal out of it.