There’s a time and a place and an order for everything. When and where you decide to teach your kids about cursing is up to you. Some parents will mistakenly attempt to keep their kids from ever hearing certain words or, worse yet, will punish their kids for saying them. This gives false power to a collection of sounds, and parents who do this are hopelessly inconsistent (“You can call your brother idiot but if you say shit when you stub your toe, then you’re a bad person”).
Let’s get one thing straight: There are no dirty words. Collections of sounds are neither clean nor dirty. There are mellifluous words, like mellifluous, and there discordant words like curmudgeon and almost unpronounceable words like rural, but there are no dirty words. And while many words have interesting histories, the ‘vulgar’ words of a language often have the most interesting etymologies and histories of all, like fuck, which may be a distant cousin of pugnacious. It’s also a fantastic example of a word whose onomatopoeic feel is likely a part of its success. Telling someone to ‘fuck off’ is much more pleasing to our mouths and psyches than telling them to ’swive off,’ which sounds like you’re inviting them to enjoy a lovely vacation.
So now I’ve convinced you to allow — nay, to teach — your children the entire lexicon of swears. But, you ask, in what order should you teach these words? Without further ado, the list:
poop, poopy, doo doo, doody
cacadoody
darn
boobs
butt
jesus, jesus christ
damn
turd
crap
bitch
butthead
goddamn, goddamn it
shit
ass
asshole
dick
dickhead
fuck
fucker
motherfucker (uncle fucker, if you’re into South Park)
cock
cocksucker
cunt
blowjob
At this point, your kid is already past the age of 8, so they’re pretty much on their own.
I think “bitch” is too high up. I mean it’s understandably objectionable to a lot of people on certain uses. Similar to how some people will find “god damn it” more offensive than just “damn it”. Point is, it shouldn’t be more innocuous than “butthead”…
Also: needs moar pussy.
Pussy is one of those words that doesn’t appear in the child’s lexicon until after 8, at which point everything is fair game.
Bitch and butthead are almost equal, but you’re right: Bitch should be a bit later in the list, perhaps right after ‘shit.’
Hah, took me too long to reply because you wrote your own comment instead of replying to me, goofball!
Really? Pussy is learned later than cunt? I’d say most people would place “cunt” in either first or second place as most offensive [North American] English words.. Pussy is much more palatable… As an insult or a vulvic euphemism…
Well, in my house, it was ‘cunt’ before ‘pussy.’ There’s something so innocent about ‘pussy’ that we didn’t want to corrupt it, while ‘cunt’ is its own wonderful, solitary word. Plus we had just seen “Kick Ass.”