Progression of swearing

Google defines 'swear word' as "an offensive word used especially as an expression of anger"

Swearing has become more common in recent years, but what you probably don't know, is that only 14% of swearing is done in an angry tone. The most commonly used tone when swearing is distressed. Swearing is thought to be used by teenagers more than anyone else and the fact that the second highest relationship you talk to when swearing is classmates, (the first being friends) proves this.
We know words go through drift, this is when there meaning changes over a period of time.

But this leads me to ask the question, because we used more swear words, we obviously don't find it very offensive, we don't use an angry tone, is it possible that these words are going through drift, and are they still even taboo?

oxforddictionaries.com defines taboo as "a social or religious custom prohibiting or restricting a particular practise or forbidding association with a particular person, place or thing".

Swearing is now an allowed social custom, with only 3% of swearing received with rejection. And everyone knows that parts of our legal system are very religious focused, but as a society, less and less are becoming religious, and our laws are changing, such as the gay marriage.

As you would expect, different groups have different statistics, for instance, men swear more than women, and both use different words, girls taboo words are "oh my god" and "bitch". But men's top swear words seem to be worse, as they include "f**k" and s**t".

There are no significant differences between racial groups, and all have the same sort of statistics.

We can see most words go through a period of change where they are becoming more common and considered not as bad, but there is still one word, which is still considered by lots that is still bad. I've watched shows where f**k wasn't bleeped out, but this word was.

The word, as most of you guessed (proving my point) is c**t.
Although it is still considered the worst,I have heard it used by many people.
I also know that in Australia, the word is even more commonly used that it is here, friends openly greet each other using the word in public.

This leads me to ask, where will this go next and why has it happened.

And to me the answer is simple, our friends do it, so we do to, and our friends do it because the media allows it, movies use swear words obsessively, and music artists, especially in rap, which makes sense because rap has archived new hights
With our generation.

And to answer where it will go next, I would not be surprised if in a year or two, we are witnessing a swear word or two before the watershed, the words will be used by teachers in school (secondary) or maybe a job interview (which I have already witnessed).

Scott Tennant

Sent from my iPad