Hello Mike,
There's nothing inherently wrong with any swear word. Any perceived offense or insult behind the words themselves is a result of indoctrination by our parents and teachers. And when you really want to insult someone, non-swear words are no less vile than swear words. The intent behind the words is what matters most. Getting upset over the words themselves is just plain silliness.
True, there is more significance in the spirit behind the words such you don't need expletives to communicate the same thing (although using them does make the messsage much more severe). There are some fair considerations in your and other's posts, and this has been good for me to think about more.
But I disagree that it's completely about indoctrination or that the words are devoid of meaning. Somebody else mentioned that every culture has its swear words. There is always a history behind such words, though. So really, while all children are indeed indoctrinated to begin with (is there any other way?), yet as they grow older, many will learn the "why's" of what they were taught when they were young when their minds were not capable or ready to understand these things. Later they may accept the reasonings or reject them. Ingrained reactions may remain, however, as you suggest. Even so, some indoctrinated values may still remain yet unconsidered. This will always happen to all types of people in all cultures and in all worldviews. If the principles behind the values are good, then I'd gather that the keeping of these values will remain useful and practical into adulthood.
In regards to English epletives, there's a history behind those, of course, which most of you know. Some express what some might call the "baser" elements of life: as such their meaning is associated with the filthiness of excrement or urination or whatever. In the case of the f-word, most of us know that it refers to the act of copulation. Since most people rarely do any of the above in public (and if they do, they are usually looked at with horror), even so expressing these words in public is usually considered rude and offensive(or used to be). Thus my argument was that society (and parents) have typically had a good reason for discouraging there use, and it's not completely fair to call it indoctrination with the implication that it was a bad thing (maybe that was not your implication, but it came across that way). I'd say it was good training ever so much as it's good training to wash your hands before you eat. This is one reason I also said that I felt it was less a matter of the words changing meaning (as Walter seemed to suggest in his first post on the topic), and more about people's manners and sensitivity changing as the use of expletives becomes more common-place. I know some words change meaning, but these aren't the ones... not yet at least. :)
So what we have here is a society where people are becoming so used to hearing and saying expletives and profanity that they no longer think of their meaning, even though these words retain their meaning still. Yes, it is usually the less desensitized of us that get offended at hearing them. I still associate them with the meanings they retain, and so I especially dislike these terms being used in normal conversation as much as I'd dislike seeing the content of their meaning. So I believe their is a strong argument for these words not being completely neutral: they are an abstraction of reality. Eventually that abstraction might carry multiple meanings or lose meaning in the minds of society... but most people might think differently about their speech if you flung some manure at them in return for every expletive they sent your way. I don't think throwing manure would eventually lose it's meaing, though. :D
I believe that we benefit from speaking in such a way that we edifiy our listeners, including the avoidance of insults with or without expletives. I can't say I can see much edification in the use of expletives and profanity as the delivery vehicle, though, based on my reasoning above. I've worked around it most of my life, and strangely, the language hasn't improved with the hearing of it.
Most of the people I work with have eventually figured me out and limited their swearing when around me; and I've been thankful for that, since it shows that they don't want to offend even though I don't make a big deal of it (well, sometimes I tease them about it). And no, I don't go around forcing people to stop swearing, although I /might/ ask them to stop using profanity around me with a "please".
In this newsgroup, I see it as "noise" that interrupts the communication process for more than a few people.
-JJR
