You Heard Me!

Not too long ago, I talked about how I don't believe in swear words. In there, or at least it should have been in there, was a tacit acknowledgment that I'm well aware that my feelings on this are very much in the minority. I try to temper my language accordingly.

But of course, there was always the etiquette/protocol/what-have-you about what one could say in front of your parents.

I remember saying "cock-knocker" at a New Years Eve party when I was about 11 or so. I didn't even know what I was saying. I was parroting a movie (Stand By Me). I got it good for that one. I probably got it worse for yelling "CHILD ABUSE!" when my father started giving me a butt smacking, but cut the kid me some slack...I had no clue what I said was "wrong" at the time. Both cock-knocker and yelling abuse.

My father was the more lenient of the two parental units, by far. My mother wouldn't tolerate the use of "sucks," in the context of something being bad, or unfavorable. She was always a bit old-fashioned, though. A few months before she died, we were at a family gathering. She made some remark that was startlingly quaint, and I asked her if she was actually able to hear us all the way back there in the '50s.

Once, while driving her back from somewhere or another, as we were close to home (I know exactly where for my readers who are geographically inclined to know: the stop light off the Rt 10 S Furnace Branch Road exit ramp), I dropped a fuck in to a sentence. I immediately got the earful. Unfortunately for her, she summed it up with "what if I were to just say it, huh? Fuck! What do you think of that?" Ruined her poor argument, as I retorted, "I think it's pretty funny, and kinda cool." Ah, Mom. The woman who told me only weeks before she died that she didn't think I'd like a guy like George Carlin because he was so "blue." As in his language, not his mental state of mind.

Now, Dad...well, he could curse with the best of them. Kind of like the father from "A Christmas Story." Except he was pretty careful not to drop the f-bomb around me. But hells, damns, sonuvabitches...dropped like crazy. But I remember distinctly when I learned how lenient he would be with me. I was probably right over the age of 18. I think had I been under 17 he'd been more strict, out of the notion that 18 magically makes you an adult. But we were in our backyard, and moving these cinder blocks. I dropped one on my foot. My reaction was as natural to me as scratching an itch, or blinking. "OW FUCK!" sums it right up.

Pause. Dad looks at me. Sizes me up. "What did you just say?"

No hesitation, I look at him and say "You heard me! I said fuck, I just dropped a cinder block on my foot!"

He gives me a another sizing up, followed up with a patented father stare/appraisal that I think is imprinted in the Raeke DNA, then when I don't back down, says, "That's what I thought you said. Just don't say that in front of your mother."

Fuckin' duh, Dad.

Swears

I won't lie to you.

I don't believe in swear/curse words. In this manner (amongst others) I'm a (George) Carlinite. Words are words. We, as human beings, give them their meanings, both denotation and connotation. This is why we have so many different languages, and even more dialects within those languages. Our brains have associated sounds with meanings.

And somewhere along the line, someone or a group of someones said "don't say those words. Those are bad words." I thought words could never hurt me? I mean, that's what we were always taught to say/think as kids, right? Stick and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me. So how can there possibly be a bad word?

There can't. It's an antiquated bunch of crap. Excuse me, shit. There's nothing wrong with the word shit. People only think there is because they've been conditioned to feel so. Look at how other words have gotten desensitized over the years. Mark my words, many more will follow, because words are only words. We are the ones who give them meaning. Without us declaring them good or bad, they are merely a grouping of sounds. Phonemes arranged in a manner in which our brain interprets as communication.

Here's another thing: you know how sometimes using such words is considered "vulgar"? You know the dichotomy of that word? You should check it out. I'll give you the condensed version: Vulgar meant peasant or commoner. After the Norman Invasion when Norman French were the nobility in England, French was the language of nobility. To be vulgar was to speak English. Like a commoner. You can see how it evolved in to speaking swear words in this day and age, but remember why exactly it was thought of as bad: a way to separate the upper crust from the lower.

I don't believe in swear words. I believe in words. Words can never hurt me. Only if I let them. I refuse to let words hurt me. I command the word, the word does not command me. Don't let it command you, either.

Sticks and Stones

Note: This post is inspired by Deborah's post today over at Uncommon Notions.

I'm not going to lie to you good people. I cuss like a f'n sailor. I'm sure that disappoints my mother, but I really don't care. I could justify it by saying I'm blue collar, or that I like the raw emotion that these words bring to a sentence, but that'd be hollow justification to me. In the sense that this is not how I feel about the issue.

I simply believe that curse words are arbitrary. Utterly and completely.

Think about this...what makes a curse word a curse word? Simple: we say they are. That is it. That's the beginning, middle, and end of the process. We have put the stigma of "badness" on those words. We've built them up to be some incredibly taboo thing, something you should never say in polite company. Things you get million dollar FCC fines levied upon your TV or radio station if one of them slips by. Things that change a films rating from PG to R (for a better dissemation of how screwed up that is, see South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut). But here's the thing:

They are only words.

Back when I was a boy, and teased mercilessly (you try having a name that rhymes with fart), I was taught my first linguistics lesson. Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can never hurt you. But Bart, you say, that's something mothers tell their kids when they come home crying from being teased all day. Maybe. But it's also a very pertinent linguistics lesson. Words can never hurt you. Words are dispassionate, unbiased. In the hands of a talented person, they can be melded many different ways, but in the end, they are still words.

The only difference is that somewhere, some time ago, people with enough clout deemed curse words to be vulgar.

Which brings me to my next point...do any of you know what the origin of the word "vulgar" happens to be? It's derived from Middle English. It's the word for the common people. Vulgarity came from the aristocracy looking down their nose at the commoner. This is even more prevalent in the language, since the nobility, since the Norman Invasion, had French roots, language wise. Which is why, in the English language, a French word is the "classy" word to use in a situation. Think about that for awhile when you're talking about someone being vulgar, or using vulgarity. The entire concept was borne of class distinction. Not the most glorious of births, huh?

I'm not saying everyone should curse like I do. Or like my one boss, who probably couldn't string together a sentence if he was deprived of the f-bomb (I teased him one day after he got through a sentence by saying "8." That's how many he used in one sentence.). But I do think we should realize that we're being completely arbitary when we say that these are "bad" words. Irregardless. THAT'S a bad word. The other ones are words that people, long before any of us, or even our parents, were born, deemed to be "common."

Words can never hurt you, my friends.