In my Navy days, Ann, I picked up profanity as (mostly) a verbal tic. Sailors throw in “fuck” in conversations the same way most civilians say “um” or “y’know,” and with about the same data content. (Herman Wouk touched on this in The Caine Mutiny introduction, where he essentially said, Yeah, I know real sailors don’t talk like people do in my book — I was in the Navy thank you very much — but if I had them use all the profanity we really used you readers would freak out.) So when I went to work for a civilian company I worked to clean up my language… kinda. I switched to Yiddish swear words, compliments of my Jewish high school classmates. I could indulge my emotional outbursts without freaking out my goyisher coworkers. Easy fix!

God having a twisted sense of humor, naturally I ended up working with an Israeli. 🙄