"Damn" is not a bad word.

It's true.

Words are symbolic representations of meaning. Actually damn could be a bad word if used in a certain context. Damn, when used like "daaaaaaamn" is meant to convey amazement, which is a good thing. However, in the context of "damn you", the word is a bad word because it is meant to convey that you want someone to go to a bad place.

A word is nothing more than a representation of meaning. If the f word meant cow, it would no longer be a bad word. The only reason these words are considered bad is because we have said they are. If there was a word for "I hope you die", it would have to be as much of a bad word as any other bad word.

The meaning behind words should be the only thing that determines whether or not a word is a good word or a bad word. So when your 4 year old says, "damn", before you punish him/her consider what context the word is being used in because he might not have actually done anything wrong.

please move to philosophy and metaphysics. I posted in the wrong forum.

completely agree..even movie censors for television agree.. when someone says "god damn" in a tv censored movie they remove the word "god" usually and leave the damn...

wonder does this mean that the word "god" is a dirty word?

reply to post by CaDreamer


I like freedom of speech more. A word isn't bad, it's just sounds coming out of a human mouth. It is people who declare words as good or bad. People should be able to say whatever words they want.

Actually, ALL words are JUST words aren't they?

Differing cultural backgrounds may associate a secondary meaning to certain words and place them in the "profanity" category, but, this is all a matter of context is it not?

Some languages use body parts, and the infamous acronym for "Fornication Under Consent of the King" in order to shock, while other cultures tend towards more religious symbols... (even the furniture!?!) like "tabernacle" and such as profanity.
Of course, the use of any cultures' gods and/or profits' names in vain is traditionally quite frowned upon by the particular culture. (ex. Shouting "Ah VISHNU!" after hitting your thumb with a hammer will not have the same effect in the west as it might in India... and vice-versa with "Christ or Jesus!" in India.)

The point is, if you do not allow yourself to be shocked by these particular words, then they lose all their secondary, profanity-leaning weight.

Try it with kids... when they learn a so-called "dirty" word, they repeat them ad nauseum BECAUSE it causes a reaction in their parents (and/or adults in general)... but now try acting un-phased by them when they say these words... BINGO, they will stop.

I have always found it very amusing how people can get so riled up about words that make absolutely no sense in the particular context they are used unless one decides to let them.

the Billmeister

Saying something like "God damn you" or "God damn it" probably isn't a very nice thing to say.

But, saying something like, I couldn't give a damn, is an entirely different thing. It comes from a tinker's damn, which is used in metalurgy.
LINK

There's some debate over whether this phrase should be tinker's dam - a small dam to hold solder, made by tinkers when mending pans, or tinker's damn - a tinker's curse, considered of little significance because tinkers were reputed to swear habitually.

If we go back to 1877, in the Practical Dictionary of Mechanics, Edward Knight puts forward this definition:

"Tinker's-dam - a wall of dough raised around a place which a plumber desires to flood with a coat of solder. The material can be but once used; being consequently thrown away as worthless."

That version of events has gone into popular folklore and many people believe it. After all, any definition written as early has 1877 has to be true doesn't it?

Knight may well have been a fine mechanic but there has to be some doubt about his standing as an etymologist. There is no corroborative evidence for his speculation and he seems to have fallen foul of the curse of folk etymologists - plausibility. If an ingenious story seems to neatly fit the bill then it must be true. Well, in this case, it isn't. The Victorian preference of 'dam' over 'damn' may also owe something to coyness over the use of a profanity in polite conversation.

That interpretation of the phrase was well enough accepted in Nevada in 1884 for the Reno Gazette to report its use in the defence of a Methodist preacher who was accused of the profanity of using the term 'tinker's dam':

"It isn't profane any more to say tinker's dam. The minister stated that a tinker's dam was a dam made by itinerant menders of tinware on a pewter plate to contain the solder".

The same view was expressed in the Fitchburg Sentinel newspaper in 1874.

The problem with that interpretation is that all those accounts ignore an earlier phrase - 'a tinker's curse' (or cuss), which exemplified the reputation tinkers had for habitual use of profanity. This example from John Mactaggart's The Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824, predates Knight's version in the popular language:

"A tinkler's curse she did na care what she did think or say."