When I was but a wee teen, I often found swear words highly objectionable. I would be mighty offended if someone said The F Word in front of me, and my ears would bleed if someone said the forbidden three Hokkien words.

As I grew up, I lost some sensitivity to the whole thing, and I had less dramatic reactions. I even found some common ground in being able to say sh*t, b**ch and f**k with nifty asterisks in tow. (Because not seeing it somehow means you will not think it…rrright?)

But then you start running into inconvenient traps, where a euphemism is in mid-evolution from polite nicety to accepted vulgarity. Ten years ago, “crap” was a teeny bopperish Americanism which held little value. Today, it’s used in common speech—”took a crap”, “crap this story out quickly” (as my editor has said many times).

So we need to find another euphemism for what was a previous euphemism for sh*t. “Crud”, I hear now and then. But what happens when crud runs its course, sprouts wings and flies out of the primordial vulgarity soup, joining the rest of the big swear words in the sky?

This is why swearing is fun, isn’t it? Because it’s forbidden. Not so much because of the meaning behind them—since calling someone a pile of fecal matter might not have quite the same effect—but because it’s so…wrong.

A game my friends used to play in the school bus on the way to excursions was the fuzzy duck game. Essentially, one of you says “fuzzy duck” and the other follows up with the spoonerism of “ducky fuzz”.

I can’t remember the catch in the game, but eventually, one of you will foul up and accidentally stumble onto the nasty spoonerism of “duzzy f**k”. SURPRISE! You’ve said a bad word. You lose.

I like that game’s philosophy, though. It’s refreshing. You’ve lost because you swore. It’s not rewardable. You are now a bad person and a loser because of your foul, foul mouth. Good game. Teach your kids.