That’s the way to swear. When someone is up in your face and you need to assert yourself, by all means, let the nasty words fly. Profanity is like poetry in a street setting like that. By the time the two men came to blows, each had uttered all the swear words they knew. Profanity quotas met, it was time to throw some hands.

Days later but just blocks away, a young mother was pushing a baby carriage and towing another young girl by the hand. She had a cigarette dangling from her lips, but it did not inhibit her ability to express rage.

The raging mother screamed at her kid. She used all of the predictable profanity without finesse. This was not trash talk, it was violent cussing in place of motherly admonition. People turned to stare. An older woman winced.

That’s not the way to swear. Most of us have no tolerance for people who spout off in front of their children. The young mother continued down the sidewalk, screeching and cussing. Her kid looked frightened and confused. You just know the kind of sentences she’ll be stringing together at day care.

A woman in the park was heavily tattooed and she swore with great aplomb. Her hands shot into the air to emphasize each point and each new foul word had extra emphasis. The cops were in her face. They wanted to know if it was she who caused the ruckus that brought them here.

The tattooed woman denied the accusations with vehemence. She used wicked combinations of filthy words to describe another woman. It was verbal gymnastics. Very well done. It earned her a trip to jail, but I’ll bet she felt better, having spewed.

Swearing is tricky business. It’s almost mandatory on poker night and in street basketball. It’s ugly and ignorant when you’re in a grocery store, surrounded by children and others with delicate ears. Rancid language is a form of assault in a scene like that.

Profanity transcends age and gender. You will be shocked some day by a cherubic little girl who swears with astounding flair and vocabulary. You will be taken aback by the kindly old man who calls you a great assortment of filthy names when you try to help him across the street.

Swearing can be abrasive, sure. It can be lazy and inappropriate, it’s true. But it has its place.

Swearing is a form of pain release. Bang your shin on a coffee table and tell me you’re not going to build a sentence composed only of words that would make a construction worker blush. Sit on a tack and try not to spout off with all the grace and elegance of a prison guard.

Swearing is an automotive tool. Car groans on a cold, winter morning? Call it a bunch of vile names and maybe the engine will wake up and turn over.

Swearing is a traffic control device. That pinhead who cut you off in traffic needs to hear your opinion of his driving skills, even if he can only see your mouth moving in the rear-view mirror.

Swearing is a descriptive way to voice approval of a particularly fine meal. For the life of me, I can’t describe an exquisite slab of steak without resorting to gutter talk.

Swearing is a great way to get a late-beat reporter motivated. I know I always respond to commands that begin and end with four-letter words.

Some of the smartest people I know swear like foul-mouthed banshees. I have one colleague who was apparently a masterful user of profanity in his day. But then he got married and had a kid. He had to change his ways. Now he replaces nasty words with guttural substitutes.

The sharp clang of syllables is enough to provide him relief, but it’s comical in the newsroom. On a bad day, he spews forth this faux profanity and sounds very much like Yosemite Sam.

So, there was a young lady walking out of the police department the other day. She was in a rage about some form of calamity in her personal life and she let the world know it. At curb side, she bellowed her complaints in the form of rapid-fire obscenities. Kids at the downtown pool turned and gaped. Squirrels and birds covered their ears. No style at all. I asked the young lady to turn it down a little.

You should hear what she called me.

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter.