"DAMN" NOT SO BAD.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 261, 3 November 1928, Page 8 (Supplement)

"DAMN" NOT SO BAD.

CANON ON "HEALTHY SWEAR WORD."

BETTER THAN STEADY GRUMBLING

"If there is a healthy swear word it is certainly 'damn.' There is nothing unclean about it, and it is a favourite Engish word." So said Canon Ellis N. Gowing, of Southend, an old Rugby and Association player, in an interview. It followed on the report that Canon Gowing had told the Southend and District Referees' Association that the use of "damn" was much better than a continuous grumble. "I think the language of England as a whole to-day is remarkably good," the canon told the interviewer. "On my holidays I always travel in mufti, and no one knows I am a parson. It is very seldom that I hear anything to which exception can be taken. "I do not think women swear more than they used to, now that they go to business and have greater freedom. "I have never come across girls using bad language, and I have refereed at hockey matches for them and seen them get some very hard knocks. "I believe absolutely in the modern girl, and I do not think her freedom has had a bad effect. I always deprecate filthy language in any shape or form. If a man wants to express himself forcibly it is always better to use a clean word than an unclean one. Largely the reason why men swear is because of their limited vocabulary."