6 thoughts on “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it”

  1. This also seems to work at management level between managers of equal status, i.e. Jim’s work. This does not work in Government, at least not at Statistics Canada — I’m pretty sure if my supervisor, myself or my employee(s) swore there, it would be written up!!

  2. I need a definition. What do you label as swearing? Obscenity? Profanity? Scatology? All of the above?

    It has been said (can’t cite the source) that the last words on the voice cockpit recorders of aircraft which landed the hard way was OH S**T, and the emotionless robot (ST-TNG) Data’s first emotional words after he got his emotion chip installed were the same, and in similar circumstances…I guess those instances could be regarded as workplace swearing although not of a casual nature…hmm.

  3. There are two kinds of swearing. One is to vent your own emotional state and usually involves reverence, anger or fear. The other is to insult, demean or upset somebody else, or to indicate intragroup bonding in the face of an outside threat. So – inner state, outer context.

    There are four subtypes of these two kinds as I define it. Blasphemy specifically refers to religious terms out of context; obscenity is usually genitally focussed (with special emphasis on mothers and animals); scatology generally excretion focussed; and the last category, which doesn’t even get touched, is racial slurs. Nigger is still a word to start a fist fight with, and I’m only writing it out in full to prove my point about how horrid a word it is. Horrid or not, all those nasty words are part of our cultural soup.

  4. Workplace swearing works as social bonding because it brings everybody down to the level of the most moronic person.

  5. Loki, I’m still laughing. I can always count on you for a succinct and humorous responses. I hope this post finds you and Nautilus3 feeling strong and happy.

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