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I once debated with a friend who never used "real" profanity/vulgarity. My position at the time was: if you just use "fudge" every time a vulgar person would have used "fuck", you're essentially cursing just as much as they are, you're just using a different but isomorphic language to curse in.
Years later, she was speaking about something upsetting enough to say "fuck", for the first and only time ever in my presence. Her language was not isomorphic to mine after all. Mine has an f-word corresponding to her "fudge", but it does not have any single word that can instantly both convey and provide evidence for "this is the worst thing I've ever spoken about in my life". That's actually kind of a powerful thing to have in your vocabulary.
It's weird that our "violate social norms" words are often so bad at that etymologically, though. I'm old enough that it sounds silly to me that "retarded", a word chosen out of kindness for its clinical sound and gentle literal meaning of "slowed down a little", is now on society's Top Ten No-No Words list. I wonder if "fuck you" sounded even more confusing to old fogies at some point centuries ago. "Yes, I will have sex soon; thank ye for the well-wishes?" I hope to live long enough to someday accidentally tell my grandkids that something "challenged" me and then get dragged into a 10 minute long Get Off My Lawn digression about how I'm not being insensitive toward the physically and mentally challenged ("Ohhh! You said it again, grandpa!") and how back in my day that wasn't even "the C word" yet.
Barbara Tuchman had a good anecdote somewhere in "The Proud Tower" about an older German noblewoman visiting America and being quite charmed. Not quite understanding something lost in translation, she said something like this:
"Oh, you Americans talk just like us Germans! We have our 'verdammt' and you have your 'God damn it'! "
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It's not just words either, behavior works this way too. I like to say, imagine if Mr Rogers cursed someone out. If I saw a man who was famous for his kindness and patience and general saint like behavior yelling and swearing at someone, I'd think "woah, that guy getting yelled at must have seriously fucked up". It'd be harder to convince me that somehow Mr Rogers was the one in the wrong.
Meanwhile when I see someone who is known for anger doing it, I just think they're an asshole and view them with less respect.
Rude socially unacceptable behavior is a currency that is more valuable when you don't use it everywhere.
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