Swearing, aibu?

[Ozwizard]

Ds is throwing a paddy! He wants to be able to use swearing whilst playing his Xbox. A boy in his Xbox party is having a row with ds and apparently this is how arguments are being played out by swearing at each other!! I am making ds look uncool by not letting him swear back so he looks like he is losing the argument! I do not like swearing and have never brought him up with it. I do not want him doing it, especially as when on Xbox he shouts anyway in the heat of the game! He's 13 and says that I should let him do it because of his age.

If he that keen to swear I would guess he is doing out of your ear shot anywayb

Wow, if I had sworn in front of my parents at 13 I would have got a severe telling off.

I think he needs to learn swearing isn't the way to win an argument. I know it's only X box but is it going to to start outwith that? If you don't like it, he shouldn't be doing it. If he can't then take his X box off him!

But I'm mean.

Tell him to fuck off.

You don't want to hear it, fair enough. He should refrain from swearing within your earshot and that will be what he will very likely do. My DD2 likes her xbox, but it is in her room (17 year old) so I am not regaled with however she decides to communicate with her friends.

Don't think though that he will not swear when he is away from you and with his friends. They all do. I don't want my DDs to think that it is the standard way to speak to people, and they don't. They know that there is a time and a place.

I haven't brought them up swearing, but I would be lying if I said they had never heard me let rip when something has gone wrong.

many would say that "fuck" is less offensive than "throwing a paddy".. just sayin'...

Dude the online gaming is encouraging him to be aggressive... switch it off!! If someone is immature enough to start swearing at him he needs to realise that rising to it is ridiculous. He won't see these people again, just block them. There's so many little weirdos on xbox live that just swear and attack you simply for winning a game and he needs to remove those people.

You're paying for it, what you say goes. If he wants to get a paper round and pay for all his own games and chip in for internet then he gets a say.

X box is ruthless, you need to keep an eye on the topics being used to insult each other.

They're usually very sexist, homophobic and bigoted.

It doesn't worry me actually. I don't swear myself, but don't mind it in general. My teens do when they are playing although youngest is now 15, and I'm not sure when it started. My 19 year old swears when he's playing, but rarely outside of the Xbox/PS3.

If you don't like it, get some kind of compromise?

m'eh

as long as he knows not to talk like that in polite company

My mum and dad swore like troopers but didn't like hearing me say it.

Fair enough. I swore but never around them. They never had a problem with my sister doing it though

No. You don't swear in front of parents, teachers or employers.

I have seen discussions on here btw on the derivation of the term "throwing a paddy" that suggested it was not racist, is there a definitive answer to this?

I have only seen arguements that "Paddy wagon" has less negative connotations (as in doesn't mean transporting Irish crims, rather refering to the large no of Irish in police forces in America.. it's still not great)

Throwing a Paddy = behaving badly like the Irish do. Not nice.

Bloody hell nothing is safe anymore

And while many Irish people will use Paddy in some contexts (like "plastic Paddy"), You're unlikely to hear an Irish person use the full phrase "throwing a paddy". So neither should you. It's something used by english people to describe irish people.

If that was to me then I actually don't see this issue

I live in an area where we are known as yellow bellies. One of the meanings of this is derogatory. Do I let it bother me? Nope

Just because you don't get why many so many people find it offensive… doesn't make it inoffensive. Irish living history is very very raw. You don't have to understand that to respect it.

I am Irish. I will reiterate that I have seen debate on the origins of this phrase. It is presumably connected to paddy wagon, which it seems was named on account of the Irish police officers in America, not the people being put inside the wagon! Throwing a paddy meaning to be thrown into the van. If the term paddy with its connections to Irish men is offensive per se then throwing a paddy is also offensive.
I had always assumed it meant "behaving erratically like an Irish man" which is clearly racist, so I am interested in whether it referring to a police force makes it better or not. I would still avoid using it, but I suspect I am known for being very PC!

if it was reference to police vans rather than acting erratically, then it would be something like "in a Paddy" (as in in a paddy van.. that's not to say Paddy van is okay, but anyway)

However, throwing a Paddy.. if you think of it as the police van, then it is A Paddy being thrown…. in the back … so the Paddy who is behaving badly

Paddy, by itself, can in some contexts be okay
Paddy van.. whilst there is debates about it's origins, it's generally interpreted as being used because Irish are likely to be thrown in a police van for D&D
Like a Paddy shop (for really messy), not okay
Throwing a Paddy.. never okay. Regardless of weather it's a reference to erratice behaviour, or being thrown in the back of a police van.

and while Paddy by itself can be okay sometimes.. most of those times are when Irish used it themselves. Its got a bit of a sting in the tail when it's an English person using it against an Irish person even if they think they're being funny/familiar.. it's still too soon..