[original artwork by Jim Sullivan, as if anyone else would claim it.]
The title, and the artwork, should give you some small hint about my newest column in the Boston Herald. Or not. I don't know. The art isn't very good and doesn't really give you the idea. It's supposed to be of someone encountering the sort of things I sometimes write here, which used to be strewn with obscenities on occasion. But this isn't obscene and neither is my column, which you can find at...
... but the column is about obscenities, if that helps.
As always, thanks a shitload for reading me.
Soon, with more, bitch.
11 comments:
For the most part, I believe curse word usage is relatively new. my folks never used curse words, except my mom may have occasionally said "Dammit to Hell" and we would all run and hide. Even our military, the graffiti I always see was "Kilroy was here" Not "Fuck Hitler." Most people back in the day just did not use nasty words...except maybe for those friggin Sullivan's!
I like what joeh said about the Sullivans! :-)
My mum would say DAMMIT! whenever things got really bad, but I never ever heard my dad say any kind of swear word, no matter how mild.
I've been known to use my mother's DAMMIT! on occasion, but that's about as far as I go with the bad language.
My Mama was a bartender. She taught us every cuss word in the book. Typical:
"MFing, cheap damned SOB cheated me out of an effin' tip!" I was 6 and got into a LOT of trouble at school using some of those choice words. Ha! She's 88 and still using most of those words. Great article!! xo
Gratuitious use of expletives seems to cheapen their value.
Sweetie taught our children to swear in German so they wouldn't get in so much trouble.
Laughing out loud !!! "I could no more live with a steady diet of “sugar” and “fudge” than could a diabetic. " Absolute gold Jim, the incredible! Now don't you leave me the usual " so kind of you and thanks for reading" bullspit, you sugary fudger! (cheeks and ears reddening with shame...)
Thank you, friends.
I have a degree of sympathy with the 'limited vocabulary' school of thought regarding cursing. Most of it is just filler, to give a kind of emphasis to my anger, anyway. And a lot of it is just stupid (eg, "my fucking car died"; entertaining as that mental image may be. . .)
My dad grew up on a farm, so we got ample exposure to the various 'excrement words', but the sexual ones were beyond the pale. . . 'Asshole' was somewhere between an excrement word and a sexual one, but at any rate, 'jackass' or 'horse's ass' carried roughly the same freight, and was more acceptable (by whatever standard such things are measured). . .
My brother's a longshoreman... retired longshoreman.
The words are still there, particularly em effer.
I was Navy and learned the same language, but tried to be selective in its use.
I realized I was being unsuccessful on day, when home on leave, when I used that expression in normal conversation with my mom.
I also realized she was familiar with it because she didn't bat an eyelash.
My ex (spouse #1) used like to tell a story on me:
She was driving somewhere with our three year old son in the car and found it necessary to sound the horn in anger.
My son asked, "Why'd you do that, Mommy?"
She replied, "So that other car wouldn't hit us."
He responded. "Just call them an asshole, like Dad. Then they won't hit us."
Skip reminded me. . .
My wife's maiden name is closely related to a popular slang term for the male genitalia, and even at a distressingly young age, she was privy to the vulgarity associated with that. So our kids were, um, surprised that her reaction to said vulgarity was much closer to annoyance than shock. . .
One time, when one of our older girls was 2 or 3, I was at my workbench trying to repair a broken doll cradle for her. In the course of the attempt, the screwdriver slipped, and the damaged cradle was no longer merely damaged, but ruined. In my frustration, I let fly with the standard excremental expletive (a particularly emphatic, drawn-out version of it), unaware that my young daughter had come down the stairs to watch. Hearing my imprecation, the innocent young thing, all wide-eyed and sincere, asked, "Why say shit, Daddy?" Which, alas, has passed inevitably down the family lore. . .
I enjoyed that.
Am currently picking up swearing in Costa Rican Spanish...it is rather dull and repetitive after the English language tradition...but it does the trick when necessary.
In my family, it was the opposite. My dad would get very creative in his attempts to avoid cuss words, and since he was easily frustrated, he was very creative! My mom, on the other hand, didn't mince the damns or shits or whatever was called for at the moment. I knew better than to say one around her, though. P.S. It drives me crazy about the Herald. I hope you keep writing and find another place to publish. But maybe this is your sign to publish a collection of your blog posts!
Post a Comment