When I was a kid cussing was very strictly forbidden in my family. My parents never cussed and we kids were not allowed to. Once, when I was around 10, I accidentally cussed in the presence of my father. To my relief he didn’t even seem to notice. I wasn’t sure what to make of that.

I once wrote a novel that did not contain one single solitary cuss word. Furthermore, it did not contain any mention or reference to sex.

After it was published I got comments like, “Wow, fantastic story but there was no sex. WTF? No sex in the entire book! I was so disappointed!”

I also got comments like, “Wow, what a fantastic story. This book would make a great animated children’s movie!” This took me by surprise because the idea never occurred to me.

I’m still waiting to hear from Pixar.

You can write a 100,000 word novel and only use one cuss word in the entire book and that one cuss word will have monumental power.

You can write a 100,000 word novel and include in it 15,000 cuss words and those cuss words will have very little power — except perhaps the power to nauseate.

Words are very imperfect tools and it’s not about what tools you use but rather HOW you use them.

When you’re creating a masterpiece painting you don’t leave out a certain color because that color is judged as ‘bad.’ It’s about how you present and arrange the colors to create an image with all its many layers of meaning.

Recently, I let loose a cuss word in front of my two young granddaughters. It wasn’t an English cuss word but rather a Spanish cuss word. (Caca.) They both chuckled. They both knew what it meant. Thank goodness their mother wasn’t around.