My dad swore twice when I was a kid. Really. It's not that he was terribly averse to cursing because I don't think he was. He wasn't terribly religious and he grew up on a sugar beet farm in Southern Idaho. That's enough to make anybody swear. Backbreaking work. My mom has always had strong feelings about curse words. She doesn't believe in them. In fact, swearing shows a weakness in intellect and vocabulary. She has a strong intellect and vast vocabulary. She took us to church every Sunday, made us take our church clothes on vacation, conducted family home arguments evening on Monday nights, and essentially saw to our spiritual upbringing. My mom swore more than twice when I was growing up. A lot more than twice. I don't believe children should swear. This extends to teenagers. If our young start swearing early on, they don't develop their intellect and vocabulary. I can support this theory with anecdotal evidence; my high school students with the ...