The puzzlement of profanity

I'm going to be disciplining a student today for profanity. This otherwise intelligent student is under the belief that the use of the f-word and other meaningless phrases of offensiveness is somehow going to make his stature appear greater. Besides being clearly against the rules of our school, he is presenting his speech as less than mature.

This has been a puzzle to me since my childhood. I find no sense in this whatsoever. For the life of me, I cannot understand those who delve into offensive language - especially Christians.

The use of profanity is really a surrender, linguistically. By using offensive terms you admit that your language IQ is limited. Or else you are freely admitting that you have no other course but to shock or offend. In either case, what does this say about the swearer?

I quote Nellie Ugarte (who teaches English at Montwood High School, El Paso, Texas) in an essay about the use of profanity in the classroom assignments:

"It does not take any real effort on the students' part to use vulgarity in writing. They are exposed to it daily by the media. The real test is to challenge them to find other ways to express themselves that have the same effect as these profane words.

Profanity in writing is at times merely used as a shock element. Some students actually believe it is an expression of their generation. They think their generation invented profanity. My students find it humorous when I tell them I can easily conjugate those words in more creative ways than they ever knew existed.

Students will argue that it is their right to express themselves as they see fit. They may be right in a way, but reality is colored quite differently. Young kids still need to be guided by the adults in their lives.

When they spill into the community as adults, they will have choices to make for themselves. Wouldn't it be fabulous if they had a wealth of words with which to express those choices?"

I say amen to that. And Believers, we are appointed to a higher calling of setting a moral example. That would call for us to present our communication in a mature way.

Source: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3617/is_200411/ai_n9460653