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?

I agree completely with all this.

I dislike swearing and I hate those thong swimsuits. They're indecent, and I also don't want other women's naked buttocks paraded past my man, thank you very much. I'm single, but if I wasn't, I'd be annoyed by it. And if I had small children, I wouldn't want them seeing any naked buttocks, male or female.

Hear hear!

OP, was she quite loud? Could other customers hear her? If I'd been trying to enjoy a meal in a restaurant and had to overhear that, I would NOT have been impressed. I know staff don't like to tell customers to keep it down, so I'd have moved tables.

She sounds very irritating and performative.

It’s a real barrier to authentic conversation: like being forced to listen to someone’s unrequested stand up routine.

It wouldn't offend me, but it seems very attention seeking and I find that tedious as fuck, pardon my French 😅

On the whole I try to see past the words people use to understand their meaning and take them on the basis of that, rather than because of the words they choose to use. But when every other word is a swear word and they don't mean anything, like emphasising anger or incredulity or something, then it's noise that gets in the way of the actual content of what's being said.

I also find people constantly talking about others or events, etc. in negative terms annoying. The odd irreverent description can be amusing, but it's the sort of joke where too much repetition and it looses it's edge. It just doesn't add to life.

What you're describing, I agree with those who wouldn't find it offensive but would find it tiresome/performative/etc. and wouldn't want to be around it too often. Apart from anything else - how easy was it for anyone else to get a word in? Sounds like she dominated the conversation while saying next to nothing.

All that repetitive swearing just sounds really boring to me. Once the effect's worn off, what's the point?

The swearing is just tedious and attention seeking. The video of her daughter is just weird- and not the sort of thing a young woman should have on her social media.

and not the sort of thing a young woman should have on her social media
Vile, disgusting ageism and misogyny.

(I'm just joining in with the rest of the thread, carry on).

Blimey, she sounds exhausting. I can’t believe she took you to one side. I’m cringing for her.

She sounds like someone with a bad case of Main Character Syndrome. Unfortunately she’s chosen Malcolm Tucker.

The fact she took you to one side and described herself as 'strong meat' - gosh! She sounds so stuck up her own arse, so performative. I can't stand people like that.

Exactly this, swearing doesn't offended me but if you can't have conversation with out it i find it childish and would be bored quickly

And yes it shows a lack of awareness & intelligence and I don't care if some 'posh' celebrity or genius swears

Bad language doesn't bother me, I curse quite a bit, but this woman sounds over the top and tiresome

Everyone in her life, including her colleagues and kids, she described as fucking arsewipes and cretinous wankers and worse

I agree with you OP that this was not right. The part I quoted above really actually shocked me. It sounds abusive to call people those things, and in general conversation. Why would someone do this? It is also unprofessional. I swear and I am not easily shocked but I do think boundaries are important and this crosses a boundary for me as it is not treating others with respect. She is in a very responsible position and she call those who work for her these names!

Also the video of her daughter sounds horrible why would she be saying such horrible things to her mother. It’s not a joke when people make insults. And her reaction to you was horrible. If she could see you were uncomfortable why not just modify her language a bit rather than the whole taking you asides.

I think she sounds unpleasant and all the posters saying why are you shocked it’s a woman doing it. Well I would be shocked whether a man or woman did this. Not the swearing but the insults and name calling of her kids and colleagues.

Also agree with others about the word cunt I never use it as an insult as it is such a wonderful part of our bodies through which our babies are born. Why would I use that as an insult for someone!

Any ways I would avoid her personally in future. She sounds like she is a bit of a bully to me.

For me, my reaction I think would be driven by the type of swearing and context. Using it to emphasise how idiotic people are repeatedly would grate on me. Of course, you can tell some stories about some idiotic people but when everyone is a ‘fucking wanker’ or whatever then I just find it depressing.

id be very unimpressed by someome talking about their daughter like that and thinking it was amusing to show that kind of video of them.
i don’t mind most swear words but ‘slag’?!? Really?

She sounds very insensitive (and drunk?!). To call the wait staff that whilst in hearing range etc is awful unless very particular circumstances where it was deserved..

OP She does sound a bit OTT in general. Hard to know if you are too sensitive with swearing, as she seems like someone you’d find difficult to spend time with even if she didn’t swear. Sounds to me like she was trying very hard to be funny but it just wasn’t your humour. Her professional background is neither here nor there - I know lots of doctors socially and their language and content can be very ripe indeed - I’m sure they manage to restrain it with patients.
We used to work with a woman who got very offended if someone used a swear word in her presence - the way she described how it made her feel to hear it, even when it wasn’t used in an excessive, aggressive way or directed at her was problematic for her.

There is a strong cultural history in English of using genitalia as insults

Dick, cock, arse, fanny, twat, pussy - all variants on a theme.

When calling someone a cunt, I doubt that anyone is actually calling that person a vulva; the usage has becone dislocated from its original meaning. When I say "For fuck's sake," clearly I'm not talking about sexual intercourse.

I swear quite a lot. It's not because I lack vocabulary but because that is the bit of vocabulary that I want to use. Used effectively it can be angry, humorous, intense or dismissive. I very rarely consider what the Anglo Saxons would have thought.

Yes, I know the etymology and history of swearing. And yes, women used to be burned at the stake for having opinions, our thrown out of the house if they were raped by their employer and became pregnant — and of course a wife was a man's possession, her money became his on marriage, there was no such thing as rape in marriage and a woman's reputation and future could be ruined if she was found in the company of a man without a chaperone.

But times have changed. We've had what's amounted to a revolution in women's rights. There are still misogynistic men who use the word cunt as an insult to both women and men: and that's men for you. But when women use it too, without thinking what they're saying or how they're aping men's hatred of, and fear of (and of course, obsession with) women's bodies, I think it says something about a woman. I don't use it and I never will.

I mentioned upthread that I was a young feminist (and grew up to be an older one) and I vowed very early on not to use words that men use to insult and hurt women specifically.

You can use it, of course, but when you do I'll conclude certain things about you. Like using the N-word. It says more about you than the person you're aiming it at.

And to all those who've said how depressing it is to have all that negativity in your face — yes, that's it. Perhaps it was supposed to be funny, perhaps there was irony intended: if so it didn't seem funny or ironic.

Oh, don’t be ridiculous. The woman sounds like a tiresome immature attention-seeker, and she obviously knows it and has had negative responses to it before.

“See, I have no idea how to respond to that because to me words are soo important. Trying to find the right word to explain something matters to me”

It can’t be that important to you. You used the word “Shakespearian” (and spelled it incorrectly) to describe her language and then gave the example “wank buckets”.

Let me think about this.... You're a woman who calls other women cunts, aren't you?

Your post did bring back a memory actually of someone I was in uni halls with , who became a friend that I ended up having to extricate myself from.

She too was extremely sweary, loud, brash and had "shock" value in everything she said. She was initially funny, and that's what attracted me to her as a friend. But what started out as funny eventually grew very tiring. She was also very argumentative and volatile.

I've seen her a handful of times and conversation goes like this :
Me: how is your family ? Kids ok?
Swearypants: oh them 2 little shits ? Cunts mate ! But they're alright! How are your brats?

It makes me cringe and my insides turn over.

I usually find as well that this type, if they have a daughter, their relationship usually goes tits up when the daughter is a teenager. Because out comes the "Carla is being a fucking bitch today ! I fucking told her so as well ! I shouted at her this morning "if you don't get your cretinous little shit filled touche down here, I'll make you cry like a baby !" Then thinks that's funny and cool.

The whole lot makes me avoid this "type" they cause their own problems with their kids and then wonder why their kids are indeed "brats"

Why would you think that?
No, I don’t.

I love a good swear, and a foul-mouthed rant about someone or something has real power IF it's not your usual mode of speaking. If you swear all the time, it doesn't carry the same effect.

I am not precious about swearing- i work in a male environment, with a huge number of people who are Not Very Nice. I do like it when one of the lads starts effing and jeffing, and then suddenly catches himself and apologises for his language, and looks a bit shamefaced about swearing in front of the old lady (me).

Taking the OP aside and acknowledging her swearing and trying to justify how she behaves was very weird too.
I’d avoid her like the plague.