We’ve all said a bad word at least once in our lives. Whether we like it or not, curse words have become a recurring part of society’s vocabulary. The provocative language that used to evoke mass hysteria amongst elderly churchgoers and midwestern mothers has lost its shock value due to overuse in the media. So who is to blame for the deterioration of vocabulary in today’s world?

Movies, TV shows, books, social media; everywhere we turn profanities stream from screens. I still remember the first time I heard my sweet, adorable four-year-old little sister call me, for lack of better words, a silly garden tool after watching The Real Housewives of New Jersey with my mom. Of course, my mom couldn’t be mad at her for saying the phrase as she had been exposed to language like that from the time she was born. This situation led me to imagine the scenario of a child in the 50s calling their sibling a profane name. Their parents would, as my grandpa would say, open up a can of whoop-ass on them.

When my grandpa was a young lad, he listened to jazz music and Elvis on a record player rather than the rap music that blasts slurs and obscene language through the speakers of high school parking lots. However, in my grandpa’s time, candy was a penny and you could buy a 4-bedroom house for as much as a car is worth today so the comparison is not really valid. So maybe this generation is using profanity to cope with the economy that the generations before them left in shambles.

Cursing was not socially acceptable back then and instead of saying the words that we call curse words, they said things like “golly” and “shucky darns.” These words are just place fillers for words that rhyme with duck and fit that we use today. So what really is the difference between these words and “bad words?” The answer is simple, nothing. There is no difference other than generations of stigma.

They’re just words. Just like we are all just people floating around on a big rock in the middle of space. When you put things into perspective nothing really matters that much. Just like girls wearing pants never used to be socially acceptable until people realized that caring what other people wear to cover their bodies is really, really stupid. Society changes, that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. People change and evolve over time and with that comes new vocabulary and slang, no matter how “unacceptable” it may seem to older generations.