cursing question

These words are not curses, they are merely obscenities or perhaps blasphemies. "Fuck" is an obscenity, "bloody" is a blasphemy since is it a contraction of "by Our Lady" which sets Catholic but not Protestant teeth on edge.

A curse is usually a phrase magically or religiously calling something bad down. ("What's the difference between magic and religion?", I hear you cry. Wish I knew.)

Examples - "May you live in interesting times." said to be Chinese and the Arab or mock-Arab curse "May the fleas of a thousand camels infest you pubic hair".

Don't use euphemisms. "Moron". "idiot" and "imbecile" mean people of grossly subnormal intelligence and each one once had a precise meaning. These got euphemised to "subnormal" then when that wasn't euphemistic enough it became "mentally challenged" and more recently and more euphemistically "differently challenged". But they are still morons, idiots and imbeciles. Likewise "gays" are either boring people or homosexuals (some people might say that homosexuals are boring).

I say "swear words/swearing" instead of "curse words/cursing".

Rugger
Is 'shut up' a wear word ?

Sorry I meant a "swear word"

I would consider "shut up" to be more a statement/exclamation than a swear word.

Rugger
So, it's not too rude to say shut up to someone ?
The other day I said to one of my pupils : "shut up" and I regreted to have said it.

Gary,

It depends on who you're saying it to. It can be said in a joking way to a friend, but it can also come out sounding very rude. In a classroom environment, I'd say it's probably best to avoid the use of "shut up."

You could have said "be quiet", which, even in an angry tone, would be considered less abrupt and impolite than "shut up".

Thanks for your help mjd and Rugger