What I wanted to say is: "You need this shoe because let's face it, England's shit and it pisses it down all the time and you're going to get bloody soaked this winter."
What I actually said was: "You need this shoe because let's face it - England's .... (long awkward pause where I wonder if 'shit' is the only negative descriptive word I know) ... famed for bad weather and you're going to get .... (astounded that I made it so far without swearing) ... rather damp."
Later in the evening, when I got home, I looked at my Twitter feed. It appeared that maybe one of two Tweets would be clean, whereas the others featured a variety of foul words that I think it would be best not to repeat.
I read this Twitter feed, astounded and a bit ashamed, and thought to myself - "Blimey. Is this the impression I make on people who aren't lucky enough to have met me to my face? From Twitter, do I merely come across as a bad tempered little smoker who hasn't completed any formal English qualifications and picked up her vocabulary by watching bar brawls?"
Yes. Unfortunately, that is probably exactly how I might seem.
This is my dilemma: I like to swear. Just the same as how I like to smoke menthols, and I like to drink Old Rosie despite its dangerously deceitful alcohol percentage.
After I read a wonderful quote by Stephen Fry, I had always thought - yes! What a modern view on swearing. What a marvellous opinion. How very British to be swearing whenever one pleases. (Here is the quote for anyone who never saw it)
Swearing is a really important part of one's life. It would be impossible to imagine going through life without swearing and without enjoying swearing... There used to be mad, silly, prissy people who used to say swearing was a sign of a poor vocabulary -such utter nonsense. The people I know who swear the most tend to have the widest vocabularies and the kind of person who says swearing is a sign of a poor vocabulary usually have a pretty poor vocabulary themselves... The sort of twee person who thinks swearing is in any way a sign of a lack of education or a lack of verbal interest or -is just a fucking lunatic... I haven't met anybody who's truly shocked at swearing, really, they're only shocked on behalf of other people. Well, you know, that's preposterous... or they say 'it's not necessary'. As if that should stop one doing it! It's not necessary to have coloured socks, it's not necessary for this cushion to be here, but is anyone going to write in and say 'I was shocked to see that cushion there, it really wasn't necessary'? No, things not being necessary is what makes life interesting -the little extras in life.
At a time in my life where I need to make some moderately-sized changes, this might be an important one. In the days of social networking (and if you've read my previous blog you already know my feelings about that) I am less likely to meet a wonderful bloke and enjoy an Old Rosie in a pub garden together, than I am to meet said wonderful bloke, give him my name, only to have him search me on Twitter and think - "That girl needs to wash her mouth out with soap. Alone. Without my help."
And so as of this moment, please prepare to hear me use fabulously eccentric words and phrases like 'blimey', 'goodness', 'oh my', 'crikey', 'bar steward', 'mucking up'... (I'm getting lost now, does anyone have any inventive words?)
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