I just posted this item on my Facebook timeline.

“Alert: I just ‘unfriended’ someone from my Facebook ‘friends’ list because of his liberal use of profanity. I am prone to speak with pithy tongue on occasion myself, but I do not like using it — or seeing it — on my timeline. Be forewarned. I’ll be on the lookout for gratuitous and patently nasty verbiage. A little here and there is OK, but watch it, folks.”

Now I shall explain in a bit of detail.

The “friend” I whacked from my list really isn’t a friend. I don’t know the individual. He sent a Facebook “friend request” a few months ago and I accepted. It turns out we’re of like minds politically, so I guess he read my blog posts that feed automatically to my Facebook news feed.

But this individual has a tart tongue — so to speak — when he lays his hands on a keyboard. He would lace his commentary with f-bombs, s-bombs and sexually explicit language.

I cut him off.

I enjoy using Facebook as a social medium for a couple of reasons. I use it as a platform to share my blog posts, along with several other social media sites. I also keep up with those with whom I have signed on as friends. Some of them are the real deal, actual friends I’ve known for years; the guy I’ve known the longest goes back to the seventh grade — that would be 1962. Others are acquaintances or folks I’ve known professionally over more than three decades in print journalism. And still others are individuals I do not know, but who have “mutual friends” on Facebook; when they request a spot on my “friends” roster, I’m likely to sign them up. And, of course, some family members belong to my list of friends.

A handful of my Facebook friends are young people, as in minors. They don’t need to read filth on my Facebook timeline. I have others on my friends roster who — I believe — might take offense at the foul language. So I try to honor their values as well.

Don’t misunderstand. I am not a saint. I pepper my own spoken words with some pithiness on occasion. I do so in the presence of people I know and who might be prone to the same verbal proclivity.

I just prefer at least a touch of decorum on these Facebook posts, if for no other reason than to offer some relief from the coarseness that has become the norm.