How did you learn your first swear words?

[Hartnell 1999 89]

Gonna post here as this forum allegedly has no filter on expletives. I’ve been wondering for ages when and how people learn their first swear words. I’m 25 now and I have an excellent recollection of circumstances which lead to me learning a particular swear word, most of which took place 10-15 years ago. Here are some examples (I have put asterisks in place of the second letter just so I’m not caught out by any secret swear filter).

 

A*se

Probably the first swear word I learned, not least because my parents were huge fans of The Fast Show. That sketch with the Morris dancers shouting the A word to the rhythm of the music was so catchy, my dad uploaded part of the clip as a track on a personalised CD in 2007. This also contained our favourite summer hits and we would often listen to it in the car.

 

B*tch

Sometime around 2007-2008, my mum gifted my aunt a personalised mug for her birthday featuring a photo of her dog and text below it reading “what a b*tch”. While mum explained that this word was a synonym for a female dog, she did mention  that it was also a rude word not to be used in public.
 

F*ck

On a summer’s afternoon in 2008, me, my mum and sister were heading home from a holiday club session at a local school. My mum couldn’t drive so we had to walk into town and catch a bus back to our village from there. As we were walking down the hill with the town’s church in sight, the bus we were meant to catch whizzed straight past us. My mum, being a very neurotic person, cussed the F word in front of me for the first time. She immediately explained that this was a very rude word and I should not repeat it anywhere, but at the end of the day everyone is going to learn it at some point in their lives. Bizarrely though, I initially thought it was spelled as “Th*ck, not seeing the word in written form until a year later.

 

F*nny

One afternoon at home in 2011, the recently released song by Jessie J, Price Tag, came on the radio. Having a tendency for singing chords in a higher octave, I happened to change the chorus from “we don’t need your money money money” to “we don’t need your fa*ny fa*ny fa*ny”. I initially thought the real lyric was “funny” but apparently replacing the U with an A created a completely new word). My sister who was right next to me was completely shocked at what I had come out with, me completely unaware that what I had just belted out was a common slang word for what you call a woman down there. After that I never looked back.

 

C*nt

A friend of mine from school had a YouTube channel featuring covers of popular and rude songs. In 2012, he uploaded a cover of the London Underground song by Amateur Transplants (which itself is a cover of Going Underground by The Jam), known for its expletive chorus mocking the management and daily operations of the Tube in London (hence describing them as “lazy f*****g useless c****s). I actually showed my parents the clip to see what they thought of him, but turns out I had learned another rude phrase when mum mentioned “It contains the C Word”. They thought his singing was rubbish anyway and in hindsight it pretty much was.

 

Can anyone else recall in that much detail how they learned their first swear words?

[Sean 6,329]

Fuck :When I was 6 someone sprayed it in black ink on a white wall opposite my School.

 

Cunt:Was dared to say it to a teacher didn't know what it meant aged 8 .

 

Wanker:When I was 9 everyone shouted it in the playground but I got caught.

 

I also got in a school fight at 9 as another boy called my mother "A cock sucking lesbian".

[TQR 14,398]

My mum always tells the story of when I, aged 5, was at my nan & grandad’s ruby wedding anniversary party, doing the rounds telling various family members, as per the graffiti I’d read on the wall outside this hall, that “Callum is a cunt”. Fuck knows who Callum was, poor lad.

[msc 18,477]

I know Adam Kaye (better known for This is Going to Hurt nowadays) can't sing but their cover of Yellow still cracks me up. 

 

You're yellow like the desert in Damascus is

You're yellow because your liver has metastasis

 

Pure poetry. Gateway drug to Lehrer, Feeney etc for me.

 

The only one I remember now is bitch off a Simpsons gag. The rest are all part of the Glaswegian vocabulary. 

[Toast 16,141]

The first one I remember is 'bugger' because someone got into trouble at primary school for saying it.  However it was many years before I learned the correct spelling as it was first reported by a witness as "He said B-U-G-A-R".

 

I am old enough to remember the days when "bitch" was not regarded as a swear word.  It doesn't seem all that long ago that it was in common parlance and nobody batted an eyelid.  Used literally it meant an unpleasant or two-faced person (usually but not always female) given to sarcastic or unkind comments.  That sort of thing. 

It was also used in a jocular fashion among friends:  "Oooh, you bitch!",  "You jammy bitch!"  etc

I don't understand why it suddenly became so offensive.

[Handrejka 1,904]

When I was about 6, I used to spend time with a friend, her slightly older brother and his slightly older friend and we would put on little plays. One time we did Cinderella and I played the prince. Our version was slightly different as at the end I had to shoot the ugly sisters, then try to shoot the evil step mother but declare "Oh, fuck I have run out of bullets."  I knew by everyone's shocked reactions it was a naughty word but I don't think I knew what it meant until I was about 11.

 

I didn't encounter the word cunt until I was 15 when my mum bought one of those student rag mags and it seemed to be on every page. I didn't dare ask anyone what it meant so looked it up in the dictionary.  I seemed to see and hear it all the time after that. 

 

Also apparently I once uttered "I'm buggered if I'm sleeping on that." when I was about 3 and refused to sleep on a camp bed. I don't believe that though.

[JR976evil 906]

Well by all accounts my first word was bugger when I was about 3, also when my parents took me to the park they’d always say ‘mind the dog shit’, these were the days before it was mandatory to clean up after your dog. Anyway I would then refer to grass as ‘dog ship’ 

[Clorox Bleachman 2,435]

My parents don't allow me to swear in front of them to this day, if you can believe that. Once I said "oh my God" and got into trouble for saying the Lord's name in vain. However, going to school where I did, you heard alllll the bad words.

 

I don't remember a first time. At the school gates you would hear stuff. There would often be weans asking their parents or grandparents for advice on being bullied. "If that weecuntin'weeshiteyweedobber'aeabastart gies ye shite the day, fuckin'punchhiscuntin, smash'isglesses an' fuckin'shove'emup'isairse!" was the average response. The speaker would have Rod Stewart hair and sound like she rolled shards of glass or silty sand into her fags. There are thousands of wee wifies like this in the G postcode area. You should come up some time.

[Paul Bearer 6,102]

In before this thread gets locked. 

[One shot Paddy 1,206]

When in the car with my Dad he would swear when someone would do something stupid on the road, but NEVER when my Mum was there. One Sunday when I was about 5 we were comming home from church when another car didn't stop at a junction causing Dad to slam on the brakes to save us and I said rather loudly STUPID CUNT! Mum was very cross at me and my reply was " but that's what Dad always says", not very popular that day I can tell you!!

[Death Impends 7,977]

Internet mostly. I think the first swear words I learned were from crudely-done Sonic the Hedgehog fan comics. My parents forbade me from going to that website once they found out and it basically had me think cursing was evil, which didn't fare me well come middle school

 

Was definitely in a weird flummox not uncommon among my age group where I was too sheltered IRL and not sheltered enough on the Internet. My parents letting me join forums when I was 8 can be forgiven given the Internet was so... unprecedented back then, but if I let a hypothetical DI Jr. join forums that age I'd never forgive myself!

[John Key 747]

9 hours ago, Hartnell 1999 said:

B*tch

Sometime around 2007-2008, my mum gifted my aunt a personalised mug for her birthday featuring a photo of her dog and text below it reading “what a b*tch”. While mum explained that this word was a synonym for a female dog, she did mention  that it was also a rude word not to be used in public.

Around 2004

 

I was scratching my leg at my Great Grans going ITCHY, DITCHY, SITCHY, LITCHY, ZITCHY, BITCHY, YITCHY... When I noticed everyone just shocked and staring at me. 

 

So they taught me a new word

[harrymcnallysblueandwhitearmy 1,689]

16 hours ago, Paul Bearer said:

In before this thread gets locked. 

Ooh, you miserable ********* ***** of *********** ****** ****, you.

 

 

[The Great Cornholio 902]

Bitch, Piss off, Wanker, Bastard and all the others not stated below: From my alcoholic stepdad growing up (I think I knew all these by the time I was 7)

Fuck: Was about 7 or 8, saw some kids on the school playground. Me, having been a little shit (not much has changed), decided to steal the football and run around the field while outrunning most of the other kids. All of the kids chased me and one tackled me and said "Give back the fucking ball!" I repeated it to my mum that evening when I was asking her where my fucking football was.

 

Shit: My stepdad asked me to complain to the DJ at a restaurant we were at and tell them their music was shit and to play some Michael Jackson. I fucking complied and I honestly feel bad to this day for the DJ (who was the nicest guy) having to deal with an 8 year old coming up to him and calling his music shit.

 

Arse and Cunt: At the football with my Dad - heard arse at 7 and cunt at around 10 years old (or at least thats the age I acknowledged it while it was being said)

[theoldlady 2,303]

Listening to an old record by the late great George Carlin — way before his 7 nasty words you cannot use on TV routine can out. 

[ladyfiona 2,588]

Considering I first watched Grease when I was in summer camp and I was about 6 at the time. Probably then.

[Sly Ronnie 885]

I remember my brother calling me a cunt in 1983, a few weeks after he started at secondary school..

[MrSpud42 30]

Hmm - being a football fan most would think I learnt most of my bad language / swear words there. Not in my case...

I was taken to the football by my mum to escape my father's invariable use of all the above words in a variety of combinations when various agricultural machines broke or his method of repair, normally a hammer failed to repair it. The joys of growing up on a remote farm in Norfolk.