I read recently on the Huff site that the town of Middleborough has voted to fine people $20 for swearing in public.
Golly gosh I thought to myself, that could prove an expensive place to live, not somewhere to stub your toe or drop the mustard jar.
We all know swearing is wrong, and when we have children make a big effort to reduce output, or at least use lesser-known words to confuse them. There's nothing more cringe-worthy than when your gorgeous toddler drops a "Fuck" in company, or, as in my case, when granny asks Darling Son what he's up to and he replies "I'm just pissing about Grandma, I'll be down in a minute".
It's not like we have to make an effort to swear, these words just leap out of our minds and straight through our mouths before we can stop them, esppecially when under endurance.
So, what can we do to stop - before we go bankrupt? After all, this fine is obviously the modern equivalent of washing your mouth out with soap and water.
One solution is to develop a lexic of satisfying but not too naughty words, I enjoy using the word "numpty" at school, it's not in the dictionary so keeps pupils on their toes as they don't actually know what it means.
If your offspring has picked up a bad word at home the thing to do is immediately dash up too school and demand an explanation/inquest, " Johnny came home last night and said ******; he obviously picked this up at school, what are you going to do about it ?"
I have found the perfect answer, I always swear in French in front of my children, that way people think they learnt it from their father.
What do you think is the bloody solution?
