YOUR CURSING KIDS

(August, 2016) Is swearing good for you and your kids?
– According to a new book “In Praise of Profanity,” author Michael Adams says adeptness at swearing is not only good for you but worth passing on to your kids. Bad words, Adams points out, “are unexpectedly useful in fostering human relations because they carry risk … We like to get away with things and sometimes we do so with like-minded people.” However, Adams notes that the power embedded in curse words comes from the fact that society and parents frown upon their use. He worries that eventually, the social unacceptability of it will disappear and “the words would just be normal words.”
– Besides serving as bonding vehicles for parents and kids, swear words signal intelligence. Researchers at Marist College and Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts found that people with the best vocabularies in general know the most dirty words in particular.
– Just as importantly, studies have found that swearing can relieve pain, help you fit in and contribute to winning arguments.
* Cursing WITH your kids, or AT your kids?
* “Society and parents frown upon curse words,” unless you’re watching cable.
* In Praise of Profanity? I bet his publisher dropped a few F bombs when he came up with that.
* Adams is worried that the social unacceptability of bad words will disappear and “the words would just be normal words”? Like in rap?
* What’s interesting is to chart the things we couldn’t say a few years ago on TV that are all over the place now.
* Then there are some that came out in the open for awhile but then crawled back into a dark place again.
* I have a reaction to “In Praise of Profanity” but I work under another book called “In Fear of the FCC.”
* “Bad words carry risk,” mainly, I would risk getting fired.
* PHONE TOPIC: Do you let your kids curse?