Sheesh!
And I start that way as an illustration.
There is a slippery slope between legislating speech and legislating thought. Prior to my conversion to patriarchy, my wife made an edict in our family against cursing, and I agreed to assist her in enforcing that. However, I discovered a healthy dose of arbitrariness was being utilized in its application (
@FollowingHim points to this). Some words were verboten, and yet others that meant the same thing and were also lazy slang alternatives to an official word were tolerated. So, as I was easing myself into the role of head of household, I initiated an extended conversation with Kristin and the kids about cursing, vulgarity, etc. The first thing I introduced was that this was one of those areas of being in which one's greatest guidance could come from looking to the heart/conscience with which our Creator endowed us. Make the assessment for oneself: is this a manner of speaking that (a) truly represents what is in one's heart?, (b) truly honors and glorifies one's Creator, and (c) will communicate exactly what one wants to communicate? If not, then we're probably cheating, and it's not for any of us to stand in constant judgment about, just something to wrestle with individually.
But I did make another point. I got them to brainstorm a list of what categories of speech could fall under the rubric of 'cursing,' and eventually someone added taking the name of the Lord in vain, so I asked, what are all the examples of taking the name of the Lord in vain and/or demonstrating verbal disrespect for God. They were quick with asserting that it was inappropriate to blurt out, "Jesus Christ," or curse along the lines of, "God damn it!" I took that a step further by then asking them to list all the weasel ways in which we say the same things but cheat ourselves into thinking we're skirted around it. "Gol durn it," is an example. "Fudge ripple," was another. And if using "Jesus Christ" as an expletive is inappropriate, then it's really not any better to substitute "Jeez" . . . or "Sheesh," right?
To come back to your original question, though,
@Pacman, I'll repeat that my opinion is that the focus is best place elsewhere than on policing others -- most specifically within our own individual selves. Search our own hearts for what underlies the motivation to curse. My experience is that it's usually a result of some frustration combined with a failure to identify and articulate the associated emotions, behaviors and decisions.
Lastly, I'll add this perspective. Over 4 decades ago, I spent a year as the lead teacher in one of Georgia's public school psychoeducation centers, a place where emotionally-disturbed students spent half their day in basically educational/developmental group therapy. These collections of children included everyone from rape victims to moderately-autistic individuals to a boy who had shot his older sister dead because she wouldn't share her teddy bear. At the beginning of the year, there was a lot of swearing, and my teacher's assistance seemed to be constantly correcting them and condemning them for their verbal behavior, so I took a paradoxical approach: I legalized swearing of any kind. I gave them all permission to say any word they could think of, no matter how vile, as long as it didn't involve threats against another person. I also gave them permission to draw whatever they wanted to draw. For a couple days, we were drowning in verbal and pictorial asses, cunts, cocks, shit, fucks, motherfuckers, cocksuckers, dickfaces and blowholes. The weekend arrived, they all went home and returned Monday, a couple with questioning notes from parents, and a few who temporarily ratcheted back up their expletives. But by Wednesday it was over. For the next 7 months. Done. Once the rebellion and the stigma and the shock value were removed, so was the motivation. All those kids continued to carry with them the individual problems they'd arrived with, but they no longer swore -- and regularly turned to each other for advice about how to best communicate with words that weren't so colorful.
