Quote Originally Posted by GeneralHankerchief View Post
Not every word has the same level of intensity in every country. Take "damn", for instance, the word you cited. I agree that it's rather low-level as compared to some of the others out there (and I do share your feelings about "darn" having little effect). However, I am only familiar with its intensity in the USA. When we were originally mapping this policy out, Sigurd informed us that "damn" was one of the strongest profanities in Norway.

After having a back-and-forth conversation about what nationalities were better to cater to in terms of language editing, we decided to adopt the current policy as an all-inclusive way around this problem. It may be annoying to someone who doesn't view it as a profanity, but there may be other people who view it as an equivalent to our "F***" or something similar.
I still think its a little ridiculous, but ah well, I can at least see the rationalisation for it now.
"Damn" and "crap" are not really even considered swearing among most people as I've experienced throughout life.

"Hell" isn't swearing at all, calling it as such is utterly ridiculous.
That's been my experience as well, and my yardstick is that I say them in front of my mother.