Matthew's Journal

Surely you're sufficiently qualified that you could excuse yourself by saying you'd used "knackered" in its technical sense?

I saw that article via jedusor a while back and computed that I use the word "fuck" in roughly 0.5% of my LJ postings. I view this as entirely acceptable: if I used it often it would lose its power as an intensifier; if I used it never it would be, well, useless.

I don't believe in words that must never be used; words are there to be used, however infrequently.


As I noted to jedusor, I'd have trouble counting the uses of each word in:


…more than in:


[Swear words fictionalised to keep comment unequivocally work-safe.] The Stroop effect seems to be a problem for me only when the meaning of the words contradicts what I'm trying to determine about them, not when their meaning is in some sense shocking.

Also, I regard farting and spitting as more objectionable than defecation, urination or nasal mucus. This doesn't stop me regarding defecatory and urinary swearing as moderate-to-strong.

I once met someone who claimed that "bloody" was blasphemy and referred to the blood of Christ on the cross; I think he was talking cobblers. "Gordon Bennett", on the other hand, really might be a euphemism for a blasphemy.

"Knackered" is swearing? I have never heard that before at all. Slangy, yes, but not swearing. Presumably they appreciate the difference?

I seem to think "bollocks", "shit", and "crap" are more mild, and sometimes forget that they aren't always appropriate
Interesting - do you consider those three equally strong? I say "crap" all the time and barely consider it swearing, but tend to avoid the other two. I guess I need to be more mindful of people's differing swear word hierarchies. I probably offend some people unwittingly by saying "crap".

I remember once at school I had just come through the door and one of the teachers asked me how I was. I said I was knackered, and he looked at me shocked.

So later on, when I had a one-on-one lesson with another teacher, I asked him whether he thought knackered was swearing, and he said it was generally accepted that it was. At the time I didn't swear at all, and so decided not to say it any more. But since then I took it up again (there just isn't a better way of describing how tired you are!), of course, though I swear quite rarely even now :)

One of my favourite expressions (and what I'll say if something goes wrong unexpectedly but isn't the end of the world) is "Oh bog!", which people seem to find amusing. But in my defence, I heard somewhere that bog is the Albanian (vel sim.) word for God, so really I'm just blaspheming :)

I was once told that 'knackered' means 'exhausted from sex', but this may have been made up from its meaning, and the fact that it is considered rude.

My mum works with computers in a primary school. I think she has a non-offensive word which starts the same way for every offensive word. So, is it rude to say e.g. 'sugar' and 'crumbs', if it is obvious what you mean, or is it sufficiently removed to lack any effect (and to not be obvious for children)? Equally, is it rude to print s**t or f**k - surely it has the same associations?