On Profanity

[If you are so inclined, please note the challenge in the final paragraph.]

“As a chaplain in the Forces overseas, I can say quite simply that to me profanity was a sorer trial than any terror of war. Profanity included vulgarity, lewdness, sacrilege, blasphemy, and horrible mixtures of all four. By far the worst was the taking in vain of the name of the Lord. The men used to tell me that they meant nothing by it, that they were not even thinking of God when they thus mentioned His name. Nevertheless, the Lord did not hold them guiltless while taking His name in vain.

I found that men swore either to shock people, to be mean, or to hide inferiority. Their profanity showed a lack of education, breeding and character. It lowered self-respect, cheapened the better things and defiled the whole personality. It shocked people of good taste, provoked contempt, fouled the atmosphere, set a bad example, and disqualified men for decent society. Worst of all, it offended God.

Upon return to civilian life, I discovered that many men who no longer moved in circles where foul language prevailed switched to minced oaths. Unfortunately, a large number of professing Christians adopted the same silly and subtle vocabulary of simulated swear-words. According to the Webster Unabridged Dictionary, such words as “gosh” or “gee” are minced oaths, euphemisms for “God” or “Jesus”. A minced oath is recognizable by similarity of constants or vowels occurring in the original oath. Everyone should recognize “darn” as a substitute for “damn”, “heck” as a substitute for “hell”, and other words as a substitute for expressions too crude to be hinted at in print. Expletives beginning with “g”, “j”, or “c” should always be suspect. Expressions beginning with the preposition “by” are nearly always substitute swear words even if their point is blunted by the use of some derelict god or other ridiculous name.

For a Christian to excuse his substitute oaths by saying that he means nothing by them, and is not even thinking of the significance of the words, sounds like the excuse of profane swearers overseas. It jars one’s tender memory to hear professing Christians, including leaders, use words which had an ugly origin in vulgarity or lewdness. One even hears nice old ladies use expressions which in their original form would shock the users speechless. The best way to avoid using language which sounds profane to the initiate is to avoid using extravagant expletives. The obedient Christian wants to avoid the very semblance of evil. Experience has proved that a new convert can eliminate minced oaths.

Let the person who is inclined to scoff at condemnation of fashionable expletives remember that Christ Himself taught that unnecessarily garnished language is a product of evil. The Lord’s brother, James taught that the man who controls his tongue can control his whole personality, so let the scoffer try to eliminate his questionable epithets for a month. If he cannot do it, he is in bondage to a bad habit; if he can do it he will find that the habit is unnecessary. The English language has the richest vocabulary in the world, yet some verbal cripples have to hobble along with questionable crutch words.”

J. Edwin Orr, Chapter 5, “Sins of the Tongue,” Full Surrender.