Blue Streaks: Does today's society suffer from a profane strain?

The News Enterprise | 18 May 2003 | JACOB BENNETT

[Squantos]

Sadly a hard and fast rule for me ......dang it !:o)

Stay Safe WD

[wardaddy]

Damn Travis....

Just be discreet and clobber one of those punks.


The MF word is way overused to be sure. The B-word too.


I confess to being fond of the S-word myself but not around my kids. I have seen parents use all curse words openly in front of kids. Unsettling.

I have never publicly used the C-word(female).

[mewzilla]

11. Develope a bigger, better vocab. Then one can swear with impunity. Bwah hah hah hah.

[wardaddy]

Learn to swear in an obscure foreign language.

[maica]

Treating all vulgarity as if it is a foreign language works well too. One day in Jamaica a 'citizen' started saying vile things to me, but since they were only vile in Jamaica, I laughed at him. He could not understand why a young, blond girl was laughing while being called the most insulting thing that a Jamaican could say. Luckily I was sitting in a Land Rover with the windows up and the door locked, or I might not have been so brave!

Another observation on 'foul' language. It really is like a second language. It can seem ubiquitous in a person's dialogue - even to the point of being inserted within syllables of words. Then the same person speaks around someone who will not tolerate such words -- a date's parent, a prospective employer, for example, and all of a sudden the foul words disappear.

It all comes down to a matter of respect and disrespect.
If I had young children in today's world, I would just a)expect vulgarity-free language from them and their friends and b) I would teach them that those who have to resort to such language are being disrespectful and showing a very limited approach to all that life has to offer.

[Travis McGee]

So true. And I don't see a solution, except for moving to Smalltown USA.

[Travis McGee]

It's tough to deal with at times. One more sure sign of society's decline.

I think these tattooed face-pierced nihilist creeps would make great gas chamber attendants.

They would laugh as they loaded people inside and dropped in the Zyklon-B.

[Travis McGee]

I feel sorry for today's small children, growing up in a septic tank of a society.

[gcruse]

"In 1950, girls didn't talk that way," Futtrell said.

No, they didn't.  And surprisingly, they didn't in
the sixties  either.  

I took my family to Canada in 1971, where we lived
as landed immigrants until 1977.  When we moved back
and I re-entered the American workforce, it was
Shock and Awe.  Women has acquired filthy mouths.
They were open and out front about it, no shyness,
no revulsion.  They might as well have been reading
recipes.

I don't know what happened in the US in the early to
mid seventies, but it was a doozey.

[wardaddy]

I think folks who self mutilate have a very low sense of self or identity and are looking to stand out by drawing attention to themselves or they have a need to punish themselves for whatever thru pain and the memorialization of it.

They may indeed be quite pliable, they are sure starnger than anything we had back in the early 70s and things were strange enuff then weren't they?

[wardaddy]

I assume the word "blood" or "clot" was in there somewhere...lol


Damn Jamaicans can curse in all manner of ways and it nearly always has either a menstrual or homosexual overtone.

[Tall_Texan]

Women has acquired filthy mouths. They were open and out front about it, no shyness, no revulsion.

I remember going to lunch once with a group of female coworkers and before long they were saying also sorts of crude profanity-laced things. One, remembering I was present, turned to me and said, "Bet you're wondering now if you should ever get married."

I said, "I'm still considering marriage but you're helping me to seriously consider marrying a mute."

[gcruse]

Damn Jamaicans can curse in all manner of ways
and it nearly always has either a menstrual or homosexual overtone.

I remember reading somewhere that a culture's cursing it tied
into what it is the most hung up about.  In the US it is sex
and religion, but other cultures are entirely different.


Another thing to keep in mind, curses are highly culture specific. "Shag" in Britain is a playful way of saying you want to sleep with someone; here, it's that funny word Austin Powers uses. Sure, Americans know what it means, but "Fancy a shag?" doesn't have the same impact as "Hey baby, wanna f**k?" does to an American audience and probably never will. On the other hand, The Chronicles of Narnia was the first children's book I ever saw use 'ass' (as in "he was a silly ass) in an off-handed and casual way, something no American children's book would do, then or now. Or, to put it in fantasy terms, a race of people who's religion doesn't have the concept of eternal damnation aren't going to damn people to hell. (This is one of the things that make being an agnostic suck, religious people have all the really *good* swear words. Nothing like a good, solid, "DAMNIT!" when you're really pissed at someone....)

Or look at a word like 'bastard.' It's not that long ago, at least in the US, that calling someone a bastard was a real insult; illegitimacy was considered shameful and wrong. That's changed now, again, in the US. Two of my cousins were born out of wedlock and, while their births may not have been met with glowing approval by the respecitive grandparents, neither of the children or their mothers have been ostracized by the family or the community. In a society where inheritance is determined by something other than birth, bastardy and illegitimacy may not even be concepts.

[Travis McGee]

Early 70s? They sure were strange, but without the vicious undertext.

[wardaddy]

Yeah...they were more like naive....and a bit spoiled for many.

...but not naive for the unspoiled who'd come home from SE Asia.

Divergent times.

[Travis McGee]

I'll take flower power and bell bottoms over anarchy symbols and spiked faces any day.

[wardaddy]

Yeah...no doubt.

These days, you see long hair on a young man and you barely pay attention.

You see a buzz cut and all the trimmings and no hint of military and your antennae go up rather quickly as to the possibility of violence.

At least for me.....baggy pants and all that attitude and I'm on alert quick.

[Travis McGee]

Blue tattooes on the face, neck and hands don't inspire much love either.

[who knows what evil?]

I feel sorry for today's small children, growing up in a septic tank of a society.

Precisely why my wife and I chose NOT to have children. We saw this coming years ago, and decided not to bring innocent children into such a depraved world. It will only get worse.

[wardaddy]

Yep..