Like a Can Opener in a Worm Factory

i love catchphrases and the kind of shared linguistic reference points that establish intimacy.

Aye. :)

I get & like your rationale on swearing & abbreviations, but I don't use the latter and find myself often trying to cut down on the former!

Abbreviations mark a language that feels cosy and intimate, & I often stray towards typing them, then correcting myself. I've never been in the habit of txtspk, & so for me it's a performance of intimacy. And, y'know, intimacy isn't really something you want to be performing! And because I have slightly more reflexion when I'm typing than speaking, I almost always catch myself at it and stop it.

Swearing? Well, my parents don't swear. (I cried so much when my dad yelled damn you at a rather irritating seven-year-old me ... Yeah. "Damn". Not even a swearword by most people's standards, but because swearwords were absolutely taboo, it was really rather brutal!) My speech is fairly peppered with swearwords, just as emotional punctuation, but I still get really - um, frightened - when my closest friends swear in exasperation (and this never directed at me). Senseless, isn't it? I try to cut back on swearing when I start feeling that the swear doesn't only express, but enhances, the emotion, and it's not an emotion I much want.

Heh. :}