Why is there even such a thing as foul language?

In your case I guess the people are just offended by the word “hell”. You’re right, there are a lot more words more offensive than that. I don’t know what the restricting on “foul language” is. I just guess that whatever words make people feel offensive will become foul words. It’s kind of… personal.

It’s for effect. It’s an exclamation point.

there is no foul language. there is only the perception thereof.

Foul words seem to have 2 basis: religion and derogatory.

“Hell” is bad because Christians consider that they have a copyright on it. If you use it too much, you degrade their brand. Consider “goddam’. I can say “God damn you to Hell for stealing my truck!” But “Goddam truck quit, leaving me in a hell of a mess” is wrong. You’re cheapening the brand.

Now, fair warning, you should have made this [NSFW]. Derogatory is most easily defined by female anatomy.
Vagina – clinical
Pussy – playful
Cunt – nasty

I think we’re getting better. They started to make “black” a slur against “African Americans” at one time, then thought better of it.
”Queer As Folk*” proves that you can appropriate foul language and profit from it.

Who has ever considered “queer” foul language?

Generational, @Darth_Algar.

Next time someone tells you not to swear, tell them to fuck off. Swearing is actually a good way to relieve stress, as noted in the right wing magazine Forbes.

You’re in the Bible Belt now. Sorry.

Seriously, I’ve never met anyone from any generation that’s considered “queer” as foul language.

If you’re honest, doesn’t it seem more likely that asking a new coworker what the hell they were thinking got you the glares?

It’s a pretty patronizing phrase.

All words have connotations beyond their direct meaning. That’s why we have many synonyms in the English language, but there is still one choice that can seem to fit better than the others in a given context.

Coarse language refers to the set of words where the connotations are impolite, and against social norms. For example there is a progression from “sleep with” to “sex” to “f*ck”. It’s all about how the words alter the perception of the speaker.

@funkdaddy Sure, patronizing it is. Also a way to indicate frustration like in the event someone was attempting to use a dust mop as a giant paint brush. And I don’t recall ever saying that the coworker was new, he’s been working far longer than I have at the site. All my coworkers in the immediate vicinity did not pounce on me for being rude, they specified that hell was an unacceptable word

And I don’t recall ever saying that the coworker was new, he’s been working far longer than I have at the site.

I was referencing ”Having just moved from California to Alabama”... along with coworkers telling you what’s acceptable and possibly coming to the defense of someone else, it sounds like a new environment.

You were there and I wasn’t, but unless you’re working for a ministry, I’d at least consider that they may have been reacting to the rudeness instead of the words used.

My understanding is that using “hell” in the way you used it, is not considered “business appropriate”. I don’t know what sort of job you have, but I’ve lived all over the US, and I can’t think of an appropriate setting where that language would be appropriate in a “business setting”. However there are some labor jobs and others where I’m sure much stronger language than that is common place.

I would not be thrilled if one of my customers heard my employee speaking like that.

Cursing, swearing, foul…negative words used to describe an alternative way of expressing yourself, that’s all.

Now you have, @Darth_Algar. Queer was as much an epitaph in my youth as faggot.

Thank you for your subtraction from the conversation.

And “queer” is also the term most “faggots” use to self-identify. It’s also a word meaning “unusual, strange, odd”. Nobody has ever equated “queer” on the same level as words like “fuck”, “shit”, etc. Well, maybe you have, but no one else on the planet does or has.

Again, I bow to your ability to speak for the human race throughout eternity, @Darth_Algar.

“Originally meaning strange or peculiar, queer developed a usage as a pejorative term for homosexual in the late 19th century. Beginning in the late 1980s, some political and social LGBT groups began to reappropriate the word to establish community and assert a political identity, with it becoming the preferred term to describe some academic disciplines and gaining use as a descriptor of non-heterosexual identities.”
So queer was only foul language for 100 years.

“A pejorative (also term of abuse, term of disparagement, or derogatory term) is a word or grammatical form of expression that expresses contempt, criticism, hostility, disregard and/or disrespect.”

But don’t let facts interrupt your tiny world view.

I really do applaud your attempts to copy-and-paste whatever fragments you can find through a Google search to defend your asinine statements after the fact, but “pejorative” does not equate to foul language. “Stupid” is a pejorative term as well, but it is not foul language.

Complete

Please post opposing documentation, @Darth_Algar.

Simply repeating your ignorance is insufficient.

It seems that the definition or opinion of what constitutes “foul” language is at the root of the OP’s question, as well as with this disagreement about whether “queer” in its derogatory form, is “foul” or not. Even the OP notes that there are many words that can be used to offend, but that are not considered “foul”. Like many other things, this is a matter of opinion and is often based in culture – which can vary greatly from one region or generation to another.

Personally, “foul” language are curse words, and there seem to be very few of those anymore. George Carlin’s seven dirty words are down to about four now – piss and tits are rather bland anymore, and even shit doesn’t pack the punch it once did. Whenever people let some of those words slip and they apologize, my reply is usually, “No matter. It’s nothing I haven’t heard said, seen or done before.”

@Darth_Algar I hear queer used disparagingly so often with people of my generation. It’s used in the exact same way “faggot” is used. Since I’ve been typing this, my roommates and their friends have used it in a “foul” way twice.