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Language, Please
Most of my pet peeves have to do with either grammar or unsignaled lane-changing; I’m not a man inclined to fuss. But there’s one particular annoyance that probably bothers me on a regular basis more than any other.
I don’t like casual obscenity in public. It bothers me that people, adults as well as young people, will casually swear in a crowd of strangers.
I don’t think it used to be this way. I remember the first time I saw someone with a grossly obscene tee-shirt (“[expletive] you, you [expletive]-ing [expletive]”). I remember the first time I heard the f-bomb playfully shouted across a busy parking lot. Now it seems you can’t go out for an evening without hearing it in a bar or restaurant.
At the risk of sounding old-fashioned, I think strangers shouldn’t be subjected to casual vulgarity. In fact, I’ll be even more outrageous: I think that strange women absolutely should not be subjected to it, and that men should in general be in the habit of not swearing around women.
I suppose it’s a small thing. But civilization is a collection of small things, and we should try to preserve some of the ones that lend it grace and dignity.
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The one time I wore heels in formation it elicited much cursing, but not by me. First Sergeants are masters at cursing. I think they get tested on it.
You’re not blameless here Henry. Last mild public profanity I blurted was “*&^% this is great!” while reading your post about your lunch with David Brooks.
I think the teaching of “manners” fell to the wayside a couple generations ago, and what we’re seeing now in the adult population are people who were never taught manners as kids. It’s not just the use of coarse language in public spaces, it’s a whole range of behaviors.
Interesting connection. So maybe if we can just get people to stop dressing like slobs, they’ll stop talking like slobs, too.
Hey now. I may have been wearing BDU’s, but I was no slob. :)
And acting like slobs also. It’s why Disneyland had such a strict dress code. And why school uniforms are such a good idea.
Embarrassingly I must say, I have a potty mouth and I agree wholeheartedly with your statement.
I attended college in the 70s for a year, then left to join the Navy. Reading your initial post, I had this image in my head of raccoon coats, pennants, and flivvers on the way to the big game against State Tech U. I never dreamed I might one day be looking back at the 70s as a more innocent time, but you are absolutely correct.
I’ve had to catch myself with profanity while driving with other people in the car. The last close call I had was two years ago in Montgomery, Alabama. I was taking a young lady out to dinner after a military history conference and while on the main freeway through town, traffic suddenly ground to a halt. As I slammed on the brakes I exclaimed, “Holy shiitake mushrooms!”
It’s takes some effort to clean up after that habit takes hold.
I don’t mind profanity. I just object to it being inflicted on people who don’t want to hear it.
Profanity works. It’s a tool that can be used to express a variety of generally negative things: anger, contempt, crudity, a lack of expressive skills. One of my favorite movies is “Glengarry Glen Ross,” in which I think profanity is used very effectively to communicate the ugliness of the characters. I don’t know that it would be the same movie without the language.
We had no swearing in our home, and my children have never heard me swear. It’s a very adult thing that I use rarely, always in private settings, always deliberately and for effect. I suspect many adults of my age and older probably treat profanity the same way.
My third son was an officer in the Army. He came home to visit us one day and slipped — the only time any of our children have ever used foul language in my presence. I wasn’t surprised: I had some idea how difficult it would be for him to switch contexts, at least for the first time, and I was half-expecting such a slip to happen. To his credit, he caught himself and never made the mistake again.
I do think that, for many people, really foul language is threatening, an indicator of a kind of aggressive personality or mood. It’s more than a little ironic that the same generation that has brought us the concepts of “trigger words” and “hurtful” speech (concepts I generally reject) casually uses language that many older people associate with anger and reckless behavior.
Expletives are useful but, like “awesome,” they can be worn out. I don’t know that there’s a cultural linguistic process for quickly — within a generation — creating new and effective expletives, ones that people will take seriously and that will convey what the old ones did. I admit that this wasn’t the point of my post, which was to condemn the lack of consideration and awareness involved in public profanity. But the language lover in me finds the thought that we might be tiring out our “best” obscenities a little sad as well.
The problem with movie and TV ratings is what counts as profane. While some profanity is limited, using God’s name in a profane manner is considered acceptable.
I too find this bizarre.
That’s the privilege of being a college professor. A friend’s father was an earth scientist working for the mining industry. His favorite expletive was “Holy schist!”
I have some essays that my dad wrote for an English class he took while waiting for his army discharge after WWII when he was 19. The introductory one includes a paragraph on why he’s taking the course. He says he “picked up a new vocabulary in the service, and I’m afraid it has no place in civilian society. With this course, I hope to renew my former word power, and place in the background the more disagreeable terms that I have picked up in the service”.
He also says that although he “enjoyed the majority of the time I have spent in the service, I would never consent to the army as a career, as I can see no future in it.”
A charming observation, particularly from a 19 year old.
Reminds me of an experience I had this last Friday after leaving a baseball game and walking in the crowd leaving the stadium. Group of young 20-something fans shouting, at the top of their lungs, obscenity laced chants to mock the fans of the other team (that had won) walking in the crowd. Attention-seeking and probably too much alcohol.
It’s the lack of consideration for others that bothers me and the boorishness, not the word itself. Though they are usually linked. I don’t swear that much, except in private, on occasion, around very close friends. It would never cross my mind to blast the F word at the top of my lungs in public for a prolonged period of time.
Both.