Interpreting Words (Words are Words)

My mom and I were having a conversation about what was a cuss word and what was not. Often my brother will ask my mom if a certain word is a cuss word or not, just because of the amount of letters that are in the word. Then when I was on Pinterest (dangerously addictive) I came across a picture that said when I'm drunk I use *f-word (*only it didn't say f-word) like it's a comma.

This all got me thinking. What exactly is a cuss word? Words are just that, words, you get to interpret them. The beauty of words is that the people giving and receiving them gets to decide what they mean. Example, I was watching Girl Code and they were discussing the word slut, the word slut can be used in a "fun way" or as an insult. My mom would disagree, slut is a cuss word to her.

Another point I thought of is the generation gap. My generation doesn't take words as seriously as we probably should. Cuss words don't have the same meaning to us as they would to our parents, because it's just some word that we fit into our sentence. Swearing isn't as big of a deal, and more words are being put into the not as serious category. Like the word slut or whore ect. Really these words aren't nice so ideally we shouldn't be saying them, but we do and people get hurt.

After I would say something mean to my brother, I would say that I was just kidding, or that it was a joke. Still what I said has already made damage and he might have taken it more literally than I meant him to, because of my angry tone. A lot depends on how you say a word. It's kind of like those commercials with the daughter yelling at the mom "THANK YOU! I LOVE YOU!" and the mom yelling back "I LOVE YOU TOO!" They both sound like they want to kill each other but they are saying that they love each other? What? If someone was yelling at me like that, no matter what they said I would probably take it as an insult.

You may often hear "words hurt" but that's not entirely true, the tone you use with them makes it really sting, it's not the words by themselves. Together words and tones can make and brake people. Something that you may have meant as a joke could be taken literally.

My lesson learned from all of this is that I'm going to be more careful in what I say. I am human and say the wrong things. All I'm left doing is wishing I could take things back, but I can't and I don't want to have to wish that anymore. "If you can't say anything nice then don't say anything at all." I am going to take those beautiful words to heart.