Profanity

Profanity involves the use of notionally offensive words for a variety of purposes, including to demonstrate disrespect or negativity, to relieve pain, to express a strong emotion, as a grammatical intensifier or emphasis, or to express informality or conversational intimacy. In many formal or polite social situations, it is considered impolite (a violation of social norms), and in some religious groups it is considered a sin.^[1] Profanity includes slurs, but there are many insults that do not use swear words.

Swear words can be discussed or even sometimes used for the same purpose without causing offense or being considered impolite if they are obscured (e.g. "fuck" becomes "f***" or "the f-word") or substituted with a minced oath like "flip".