POTTY MOUTH PEOPLE

Foul language is no longer limited to moments of anger or frustration in our relaxed culture, linguists and other observers of language say. Now we curse and swear just for the heck of it.

And that, some of those experts say, is making some people so oblivious to cussing that they don’t realize they may be offending those around them. “I cuss in general,” said Percy Walker, 29, a barber. He uses the word that starts with “bull” the most. “Being in a barbershop, somebody is always telling a story about something unbelievable, so that’s something you say when you know something’s not the truth,” he said.

“Young people, for example, are more likely to use the f-bomb in friendly context as opposed to cursing someone out,” said Donna Jo Napoli, a professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. Such flippant swearing may make it seem as if more people are cursing. A range of TV shows, from the premium cable drama The Sopranos to the network sitcom Will & Grace, include profanity in their scripts. The worst I ever heard was on the TV series, “Deadwood.” Swearing is almost expected in pop music, especially rap.

”There are many good words in our language that are disappearing because we use the swear words instead.”