Am I too sensitive about bad language? TW bad language

[Bundit]

I'm just back from an unplanned evening out. I went out late afternoon to have a drink with friends and then various other people turned up and we ended up going for a meal. There were nine of us, including a woman I hadn't met before.

She was interesting and funny and, like the rest of us, in her 50s with grown-up kids. She's a director of the local health board, so not stupid. Beautifully groomed and elegant-looking. But every other word that comes out of her mouth is a swear-word.

I'm no pearl-clutching Snow White myself: I swear a fair bit. But when I swear I swear because I'm angry and use the words for emphasis. This woman just peppered fairly ordinary conversations with expletives. I can't begin to reproduce her way of speaking. It wasn't just 'fucking this and fucking that'. It was all sweary and rude. Everyone in her life, including her colleagues and kids, she described as fucking arsewipes and cretinous wankers and worse. She's very inventive in her cursing. There were moments when it was quite Shakespearian.

I started off thinking it was weirdly amusing, but that wore off and I began to find it aggressive and unpleasant. She must had read my thoughts because she took me aside and said she knew she was strong meat and she hated seeing people pulling back as a result of her language. She said she's always been like this and her kids, in their late teens, are the same. She showed me a video on her phone of her stunning young daughter, who's hoping to study medicine, calling her mother every name under the sun.

She actually seems quite a warm person, and she's got to be intelligent to hold the position she does, but the swearing began to feel really repellant and I ended up being the first to leave. Someone else in the group asked for a lift and on the way home commented on how funny this woman was with her non-stop swearing. I said well, it really began to grate on me and I didn't think I could bear being around her for long. The person I was giving the lift to told me I sound really old-fashioned and need to stop being so sensitive. Now I don't know what to think. It's not a simple matter of disliking the language she uses. The effect of all those words really feels aggressive to me. Does anyone here understand what I'm talking about?

That's just vile

And I think she deliberately showed you that video as she knew it would bother you

It is not shameful of the OP. She wasn't being offensive

The woman was deliberately trying to offend

And an awful lot of people would judge her too

Same if it had been a man

I agree with you actually. I find it tiresome and brash.

It's on parr with people who think it's cool to refer to their own kids as "the brats" "the little fuckers" "they're being c**ts" today. It's not cool, it's not funny, and quite frankly it's crass and repugnant.

I think people like the woman you describe (especially when said in Shakespearian tones with some clever words added in) are trying to prove they're very posh and educated but totally down with the cool people. It's all a bit soap box drama queen try too hard 'bridget jones' /hugh grant (whatever his character's name is )

I don't find it tres 'hilare' if I'm honest. Like you I'd get tired and want to go home.

I'm no prude, I do swear. But I also save it for when I'm shocked or passionate about something. No need to drop f or c bombs in everyday conversation.

I think you done the right thing leaving early. And no, it's not just you. You are within your rights to find sweary MC swear face annoying

i prefer oh pickles rather than swearing i dont mind hearing it but i would prefer people use a better vocab to have conversations

I think we've found her OP - (whistles ) look, up here 👆

Vocabulary and articulation does have links with "class" and socio economic status. We like to pretend truths don't exist here on Mumsnet, but back in reality, they do.

Excessive unabashed Swearing and poorer articulation is associated with lesser educated people from less wealthy backgrounds. No judgement, we only know what we know. I believe the OP was surprised that the woman in question was supposedly educated and looked and acted as such until she opened her mouth to talk like a fisherman!

It was all too weird for me, though no one else seemed to be that bothered by it.

I wish women wouldn't use the kind of language men use to try and shame us. I get that it was being used humorously, if that's possible, but so many women have felt the shame and guilt of being called a slag.

I'm glad there are some people who'd have felt the same way I did. It was strange that none of the people I thought I knew seemed to be affected by it.

You say that, but I find this kind of verbose, bold , "broadcaster" often commands a group narrative of "god yeh, Annie is just so funny!" "Yeh she's hilarious isn't she!" - but do they really think that ? Dominant characters can often be intimidating and people tend to "fall into line" with being a good little audience. They've probably all gone home, taking the heels off with one hand leaning wearily against the bedroom door , groaning to their DH "god, Annie didn't shut the fuck up tonight 🙄" (and 'fuck' would have very much been appropriate in this instance) 😅

I agree with you op. Most people swear on occasion but would have, in the past, considered it inappropriate in front of children or in a church or whatever.

That filter, that tiny modicum of respect, seems to be rapidly disappearing from society.

Take the other thread this evening when someone wasn't happy about women and young girls wearing thongs at the swimming pool. She was attacked for daring to suggest that being subjected to the sight of someone's arse crack/anus in your face is a little too much.

It's small signs of respect for other people that keeps society ticking along fairly pleasantly and it's essential in my opinion.

However, anyone that voices such an opinion is attacked with ridiculous aggression such as show by @HundredMilesAnHour.

It leads on to the genuine, frightening question of where are we ending up? Swearing and screaming at children, walking around semi-naked? It seems tragic to me.

How do you know this?

You're not the OP are you?

The OP has brought both the woman's looks into this and her daughter's looks into this.

I'm going to take a wild guess that if it was a man and his son swearing, she wouldn't have mentioned how 'beautifully groomed and elegant-looking' he was and how 'stunning' his son looked.

Couldn't agree more !!!

This is where we are going so dangerously wrong. We just keep pushing boundaries in society and breaking them all together all in the name of "progression innit?" To the point where any "standards" or "etiquette" or "norms" are totally eroded. I think as a society we're kind of craving those "boundaries" back. We're all feral!!!

If you read back you'll find that I was the one who said that I would have felt the same way if a man had used this language. And yes, I'd have been equally as shocked if a well-groomed, distinguished looking man had opened his mouth and said what this woman said.

It's about the violence and aggressiveness of the language. It's about the dehumanisation of her colleagues as 'fucking wankers and arsewipes.' There's a lack of respect towards the people she was talking about as well as the people she was talking to, including me. Throughout the evening I kept finding myself thinking 'You're a senior manager, you're in charge of a budget of millions at work, you're responsible for hundreds of jobs, and yet you talk like this about your colleagues...' We were all supposed to be having a good time and then somehow everything went down the drain.

I'm not the OP, but I for one feel intimidated and "scared" by a loud, swearing , potty mouthed man. Can we just stop all this tiring "equality" top trumps . It's getting so boring.

But my point is, would you have said he was "Beautifully groomed and elegant-looking"?

Would you have said his son looked 'Stunning'?

If you can put your hand on your heart and say 'Yes' then fine.

If you can't, then you're holding women to different standards due to how they happen to look.

And that is misogynistic.

For the record, that level of swearing would've turned me off that person too, but how they happened to look or how their daughter looked would be neither here nor there.

Nope.

When a woman and her daughter are held to different standards due to their looks, I won't be stopping anything.

I'm quite sweary, but not to the extent you describe. But the fact you've given a trigger warning in your title makes me doubt the intensity you are talking about. I don't get what your trigger warning is about?! Just that your post has some swear words in it?!

Oh FFS. Just stop it !! Loud sweary men are intimidating , you know what ? So are loud sweary women. As I said previously, I think OP was surprised that two people who were smartly dressed in educated jobs were so crassly spoken. You don't normally find that. We can pretend otherwise, but the two ideas don't usually marry up. I don't think it has anything whatsoever to do with her sex. OP wasn't even hinting it did - you are !!!

You're the kind of poster that would argue "why can't the man have the baby one day post birth whilst the mum goes back to work if she wants to ?" And express faux naivety when people try to express the mother, the woman who has literally just given birth needs to be with the baby !

Really bloody tiring. Just stop with the propaganda!

I actually use swearing as punctuation. I enjoy it. I also agree there is a time and a place. If it's embarrassing then it's not the time or the place

I put the TW warning because I knew I'd have to include some swear words to try and describe the way she talked. There are people who really, really can't bear that kind of language. Maybe people who've grown up in verbally abusive and threatening families or with belittling partners.

I guess I felt that she had shown very little respect this evening by assuming it was fine to talk in the way she did. There are also likely to have been strangers in the restaurant who overheard her. She called one of the waiting staff 'a little fucker' and then when it was clear he'd heard her, she apologised and said she was just joking.... I don't know: maybe it's how some people are. I realise I'm practically a dinosaur, but I was brought up by working class parents to treat restaurant staff with respect.

So I'm trying to show a little sensitivity towards anyone who finds swearing difficult. But go on, use that to beat me up with if you must. I'm going to bed.

I love to swear but agree that she's going overboard and needs to dial it back!

I think that when you meet someone, you don't put all of your flaws out there immediately, you have a polite demeanour

Yanbu

This topic is quite timely for me because a few weeks ago I made the decision to mostly stop swearing, except when under provocation. Partly it was inspired by all the shocking language on Mumsnet, which I found aggressive in its frequency, and partly because I noticed that I was using "fucking" as an intensifier far too much. I don't want to speak like that; it's common.

I was reflecting on swearing, and yes, it can be very aggressive when it's too much. It's a bit like being stuck with someone who hits an object or a wall. Not directly harmful but unpleasant. In the situation you're describing, being trapped there, I would have found it aggressive and stressful. Once, the person next to me at work huffed and puffed all day long. She wasn't swearing, but eight hours of her blowing and huffing made me feel extremely stressed by the end of the day. A physiological response to being close to anger that goes on and on and that you can't get away from.

The woman's language sounds extremely angry and unpleasant, and I would have reacted the way you did. I don't really approve of excessive bad language. Lots people do find it aggressive and unpleasant when it goes on too much. Plus, frequent swearing makes people sound thick and common; why would anyone want to sound rough like that?

Yuck. That’s horrible

also no prude, but u feel the same as you. Too much.

sounds performative.

although from what she said to you, it sounds almost involuntary. Like Tourette’s?

probably not. I just can’t understand why she does it when she’s aware of people pulling back from it.

I rarely use the C-word, if ever. MANY people are very, very offended by it. It seems to occupy a worse status than the F-word.

And she'll be surrounded by people who are much better brought-up than her and will be shocked at that amount of swearing.