Random Thoughts on Cussing

Cussing has been on my mind a lot, lately.

If I'm really truthful, I'd have to admit that cussing makes the air a little bit blue in my presence, too.

A really neat site, Lessons from Teachers and Twits, gives an excellent tutorial of sorts on the phase she calls "'Tween-age Swearing."  Author Renee Schuls-Jacobson reminds the reader that there is a time and a place for cussing, and gives excellent examples - they'd be great for explaining context to English as Second Language Learners as well as the middle-school aged audience she provided them for.

I'm pretty sure that in earlier generations, cussing was reserved for the men, and was considered their domain.  Shameful for a woman to swear, she was supposed to be innocent when it came to such language.

In a young adult novel I finished recently, "The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate,"  Jacqueline Kelly's heroine (known as Callie Vee) lets off an "Oh drat," and her friend gently admonishes her not to "swear."  Seriously.  But, this was 1899, and swearing and slang were not something that decent young ladies of family deigned to do.  Rather than ask if someone was "kidding," as Callie Vee does at one point in the story, she'd likely resort to a euphemism such as "Are you pulling the wool over my eyes."  And, in this story, if the men say "darned" or some such thing in the presence of a female, they are immediately and sincerely apologetic.

I admit I swear.

I try to keep a clean mouth.  It's not always possible.  Yesterday, I resorted to a heartfelt "OH SHIT," a la Schuls-Jacobson's Tween swearing example #1.  This is the frustrated cuss, which, in my case, resulted from attempting to re-hem my husband's dress pants and in the process of gently ripping the thread from the fabric instead of neatly pulling apart, it instead held and tore a two-inch gap in the fabric, resulting in the pants leg looking like it had been stepped through just at the part of the hem that is always pressed.  What other response could I possibly make? Not only are my sewing skills not up to repairing such a tear, but it was either try to fix it or tell my husband he had to replace the garment.  And let me tell you, like many men, shopping is not at the top of his list of priorities. 

Anyone with even the remotest contact with kids has come in contact with off-color language.  The younger ones erupt in giggles over basic potty words like "poop" and so forth.  As they get older, the cussing skills become more refined and while many will never be able to conjugate verbs or garner a wide vocabulary, cuss words will be used with style and flair, and always in the correct context.

For some people, swearing is an art form. In Jean Sheperd's "A Christmas Story," young Ralphie explains this about his father.  He says of the f-bomb, "I had heard that word at least ten times a day from my old man. He worked in profanity the way other artists might work in oils or clay. It was his true medium; a master." 

I'd have to say that my "old man" is much the same as Ralphie's dad.  He has sayings that, while not always politically correct, are very descriptive and often accurate and has one for every situation.  As a kid, I wasn't immune to trying out a few words, myself.  Borrowing dad's phrases just didn't seem right though, they sounded much better coming from him.  Like most kids, I stuck with the tried and true cuss words, but never in the presence of any adult who would wash my mouth out with soap. 

For some reason, other people got the impression that I was mortally offended by cuss words.  In my presence, men tended to apologize for their language.  While I was somewhat surprised by their consideration, I did admit to them that (given the context in which the cuss words were used) I wasn't offended. 

Former students would be aghast that I would admit this.  In their cases though, their language was offensive.  Using the f-bomb was something they did with increasing regularity, and the word was used as a noun, adjective, adverb, verb - any possible way it could be used, the students used it.  They used it in front of adults and tots alike, being indiscriminate in practicing or caring about "time and place" and appropriateness of language.

Cussing seems to follow a pattern, for many people.

• 
  
  Phase one:  Kids hear adults cuss.
• 
  
  Phase two: Kids try out the cuss words.  Adults try not to laugh, hearing those nasty words in the sweet voice of a toddler, especially when they're said at inopportune times like when meeting your new pastor.
• 
  
  Phase three: Kids get older and try out the cuss words again.  Adult washes kid's mouth out with soap. Palmolive, anyone?
• 
  
  Phase four: Kids learn to confine swearing to times when only in the presence of friends.
• 
  
  Phase five: Kids outgrow the cussing, or at least control it. They learn context, and 'time and place' rules.
• 
  
  Phase six: Kids grow into adults and decide they can get a vocabulary and not resort to blueing up the skies.  Plus, their new boyfriend/girlfriend is someone worth impressing, and that person isn't impressed with cusswords.
• 
  
  Phase seven:  Kids get married, and not only do they now pass gas in front of each other, but the spouses now swear in front of each other.
• 
  
  Phase eight:  Baby makes three, and suddenly the cuss jar enters the house and every time daddy drops an f-bomb, he puts a coin in the jar.
• 
  
  Phase nine:  Begin with phase one and repeat.

 

Though I do partake in that artform known as cussing, I'm a firm believer in "time and place."  Some words are more appropriate for certain venues than others.  I would no sooner cuss in front of the family priest than in front of a classroom of kids.  Being a member of the fairer sex, I understand that lots of men - and women - believe even in the 21st century, that cuss words are still the domain of men.

Someone I know was a young bride back in the 1960s.  She recalls entering her new home one day and being the target of some rude words from some nasty neighborhood boys (Petrimoulx, if you're reading this, we're going to tell your mother). 

She relayed the expressions to her husband later in the day, after he'd come home from work, and asked, "What did that mean?" 

He refused to tell her. 

Being persistent, the young bride asked again, "What did they say?" 

Her husband refused to tell her.  "You don't need to know what that means," he said. 

Now, this young bride was all of 19 and a married woman, so surely what the nasty neighborhood boys said shouldn't have been that much of a taboo thing.  But, her husband won this argument (though I would warrant he doesn't win them all, anymore) and to this day, she says, "I never did find out what they were talking about."

What is considered "bad language" obviously differs from generation to generation.  My own children had a list of "bad words" that they weren't allowed to say at school, the phrase "shut up" being among them.  I can appreciate the need to teach children to be polite, and hope that a modicum of kindness will stick somewhere along the way.  But "stupid" and "pimped," when used in context, are not really "bad words."

Someone somewhere decided that the f-bomb was no longer taboo.  Does anyone under the age of 20 remember when you  never heard a cuss of any kind on television?  I bet not.  Being well over the age of 20, though, I remember the first time I ever heard someone say "bitch" on televison and it wasn't referring to female dogs.  My sisters and my mom were near-rabid fans of the soap, "Days of Our Lives," and a woman on the show, in the heat of an argument with her lover, said of the competition for his affections, "She's a BITCH!"  Wow. Did my jaw drop.  Never before had I heard that word said on television, let alone daytime television.                                                                                                                         

Today, television shows include every cuss word you can think of - except for the f-bomb.  But that gets a nod to creativity too, as we find ways to say it without saying it:  freaking, fricking, fracking, fecking, frigging.  "Rhymes with 'witch' but starts with a 'b!'"

One grandma admitted to her contemporaries that she still had a lot to learn.  "I had said something about a frigging mosquito, and my young grandson said to me, 'Grandma, WE don't SAY those words!'"

Even substituting less . . . colorful words for the cuss words doesn't always camoflage them for everyone.  At one time, as in The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, the drats, tarnations, blasts, dangs, and hecks were still considered cussing.

Some people consider the use of cuss words a sign that the person has no vocabulary.  In some cases, this is likely true.  But, the words we say often carry more meaning than just what is conveyed by the word itself.  In what situation or context is the word being used?  What is the tone of voice being used, and how does this give the word meaning?  If you can see the person who is speaking, what does that person's facial expression tell you about the meaning of the words being spoken?

Word meaning is more than just what we see in black and white, on a printed (or computerized) page.  Try a simple dialogue with a partner.  Imagine saying the following phrases when person A is angry, and person B is a stranger to person A.

A. Good morning

B. How are you?

A. Fine.

B. Nice weather we're having today.

A. Yeah, I hear it's supposed to rain.

B. Did you bring an umbrella?

The words themselves are innocuous enough, it's the meaning behind the words that we really pay attention to.  Try the dialogue now with Person A trying to convince Person B to stay, and Person B is determined to leave.  See what I mean?  Meaning is more than just the word - you also have to consider the intent of the speakers.

Try saying, "You can't do that," and emphasize different words.
YOU can't do that.
You can't do that.
You can't do that.
You can't do that.
Depending on the situation, how you say that phrase will vary.

When the word "gross" became popular with my age group, and no longer was primarily used as a unit of measure, one uncle of mine became impatient with his daughter's constant use of it.  He'd make her say "gross" a dozen times every time he heard her speak it.  Maybe he was hoping with repeated utterances, the word "gross" would lose all meaning for her.  Try it.  Pick any word, and say it as many times as you can in as many ways. 

How many times have you said "no" to your children? Did it have any meaning to them?  Do you remember asking, "What part of NO don't you understand?"

Cuss words are such a part of our every day lives that we are becoming immune to them.  Even people who don't use profanity and don't approve of it are bombarded:  songs, advertising, television, news stories, overheard snippets of conversation when out in public.

So does it ever stop?  You can make a conscious effort to clear the air.  You can hope that the offensive words will begin to lose meaning, and gradually - as all slang words tend to - fall out of common usage.  That might not be for another two generations.  Until then, you can either encourage cussers to remember appropriate time and place, or just insist that members of the fairer sex, who are present everywhere, will be writing Miss Manners about your language.

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