What would your mother say if she heard you use those words?”

I get that a lot – probably because many of my favorite words are four letters.

Under normal circumstances, my language is somewhere on par with an episode of the Sopranos. I don’t do it for shock value or from a lack of respect for those around me. I do it because I don’t see what is offensive about something as simple as “the f-word.”

I don’t see it as a bad habit I need to grow out of, but instead as a way to help an all-too-prudish society loosen up a bit.

Let me clarify my position. I am not a fan of slurs meant to degrade a whole group of people. Racial slurs or homophobic epithets aren’t what I’m supporting. Those words come from a dark place and are meant to do harm.

On the contrary, I use “bad” words because I don’t find them harmful, and I don’t think anyone else should.

Words themselves are not hateful, but are only filled with the spirit of their speaker. I don’t cuss when I’m angry – well, not exclusively. I use curses like everyday words. When I’m disappointed, I say damn or s—, but I also say them when I’m excited.

But I’m not dumb enough to use them all the time. I’ve never let one slip in a job interview and I judge by my professor if I can use them in class.

Hell, last semester I had a professor who cursed more than me, which is a talent. It was in his class that I felt the most comfortable, and he was the professor I was most willing to work for.

I know certain words can truly offend on a personal level. I have a dear friend who accepts my dirty mouth for the advocate it is meant to be, but she simply hates the word bitch. To her, it is filled with the same hate as any racial slur.

She’s heard my speech about how the word wouldn’t be offensive if society didn’t put such a stigma on it, and although she lets me use it freely, she still only uses it in extreme situations.

Being hard to offend, I am amazed that certain words are found more distasteful than others.

Newsweek just ran an article on “the C word” and its status at the top of the offensive food chain. Honestly, it is probably the word I use most often, but I seldom hear it in use, even in gross-out, R-rated comedy.

If we just allow ourselves more freedom with our language, these words will cease to be offensive at all. Don’t let yourself be confined by words that will eventually lose their stigma anyway.

My grandma is still bothered that Gone With the Wind “had to have that ol’ ugly word [damn] in there.” She never curses. I grew up watching movies like Goodfellas (which uses f— 300 times) and Superbad (176 f—s).

As people like me continue to use these words in conversation, they lose their bite, and become part of the normal vernacular. As we relax on something as simple as vocabulary, our society will begin to relax on other issues currently considered taboo, like open discussions about sex and the acceptance of other cultures.

So what does my mother think? First, some background. My mother is a traditional, genteel Southern lady. She has a soldier for a son and soldier for a husband, both of whom have mouths to match. We all speak to her exactly as we do to our friends and co-workers, which is to say, she hears a lot of curse words. Every time a friend of mine meets my mother, they can’t believe I could say such dirty words in front of such a nice lady.

When I sat down to write this, I called my mother, to get her honest opinion. “I don’t like to hear the c-word or the f-word,” she says. “I think they are vulgar and disrespectful. I would be embarrassed if you used them around my family or my friends because it would give them a bad impression of you and would reflect poorly on me as a mother.”

Before we hung up the phone, I gave her some unrelated bad news, to which she replied (without noticing) “Oh s—!”

She is my greatest convert. I hope you will join her on my side of the f—ing fence.

- Stephanie Jackson is a senior from Birmingham, Ala., majoring in newspapers and English.