This is a post about the word F*** & the increasing inability of our world to imaginatively & sensitively communicate. So those of you with sensitive eyes might want to stop reading.
I’m old enough to remember a time when to say the word “F***” was considered oh so crude & boorish. Down right offensive even. And for those of us of the female persuasion – tantamount to creating a small scandal.
But no more. The word “F***” is now freely & boldly used by both genders & by people of all classes, creeds, religions, etc, etc, etc. For we on the western side of the
(Lord only knows what F*** sounds like in other languages.)
Now – speaking HONESTLY for myself – if anyone were to hear what I say under my breath, muttering to myself throughout the day, one would hear the word “F***” uttered freely, with great frequency & often with gusto. Somehow it just seems to fit so many different moods & situations. However – I try to limit my use of the word “in public” or out loud for all to hear. When I do so slip it sends a message to the hearer – "gee . . . Squid is really worked up about such & so or Squid is passionate about such & so . . . . . . or . . . . . don’t mess with Squid ‘cause she’s having a moment."
Now I try not to ever cause offense & genuinely am extremely careful about whom I allow to hear me say THE word. My parents would keel over whilst swooning if ever they heard “F***” escape their daughter’s lips. My poor mother cringes whenever she hears me use the word “sucks” – an absolutely favorite word of mine. Suits more situations even than "F***." It would never occur to me to use the “F-word” in a professional context. I would also never aim the word at anyone in the manner of “F*** you!” – nope – that’s too offensive for me to say to anyone no matter how angry I may be.
OK – so now that I have confessed to my own rhetorical transgressions . . . there are times when I am acutely aware of the over use of this word – increasingly so – in my world – and I am not just referring to the sound of “bleeping” on TV reality shows . Is the tossing off of this word becoming so acceptable that it is beginning to lose its bite, its radical-ness, its bluntness – or whatever mystique it has ever laid claim to? And if so, what does this mean? Are we becoming such a boorish culture that we have lost the ability to express ourselves in any more creative of a fashion? Are we now so devoid of sensitivity that we do not care who we offend? And – if we keep using the word so much that we completely desensitize ourselves to its actual meaning (which in truth, is quite offensive depending on how the word is used – Mother-f***** is extremely offensive I think) then what will we do next? What word in our language can top "F***?" Is there such a word? The “C-word” is also rising in popularity (much to my utter dismay) though its gendered specificity makes it even more offensive – another discussion for another day perhaps. “F***" is a much more egalitarian word – I’ll give it that much!
Any my final ULTIMATE question – to what extent does our use of language define us as individuals? And as a culture? As a society? Honestly holding myself up to scrutiny - What does it say about Squid that she frequently declares that things "suck" & curses "F***" under her breath?
So those are my rhetorical thoughts for the day. Even we on-line folk, it occurs to me, have an abbreviation for it – do we not? “WTF?” Comments are welcome, but please tread carefully – let’s not cause offense to anyone. OK?
Squid, I say those $%^&*-$##@ should stop their #*&$$% swearing! All seriousness aside, I think there has been an increase in the rate of casual cussing. I'm in my mid-forties, and even I can remember when one didn't think it was acceptable to go into a coffee shop and carry on an entire conversation using mostly hyphenated words not found in politce dictionaries. I always want to return to J.S. Mill on issues of taste because his analyses are so prescient about the middle class's misguided search for authenticity and originality in a consumer-culture that renders such qualities all but meaningless. I suspect that the same need drives excessive swearing that drives some people to continue mispronouncing a foreign or difficult term even after it has been explained to them and pronounced properly several times: they confound individualism and originality with obtuse ignorance. So if instead of saying (with the inestimable Dr. Johnson), "I put my hat upon my head / And walked into the strand, / And there I met another man / Whose hat was in his hand," I say, "I put my hat upon my effin' head / And effin' walked into the strand, / And there I come across this mother-effin' man / Whose hat was in his mother-effin' hand," I have – presto! – lent a degree of eventfulness to my utterly trivial actions and sentiments. Because, you see, I'm a happening chap, not your ordinary bloke, mate. What I'm trying to hide is the banality Dr. Johnson identified as barring the abovementioned metrical gem from the province of winged poesy: "the matter is contemptible." Tell them, doctor!
ReplyDeleteI have to admit, I do swear quite often; but I normally contain it to conversations I am having with myself while I am alone or driving in my car. Yes, I know that conversations with ones self is quite odd and I have been 'caught' numerous times...normally I just smile and say, "...whew, having multiple personalities is quite a burden..."
ReplyDeleteI have actually used the F word in two very professional meetings...it has such a way of waking people up and getting everyones attention. It also works very well at regaining control of a conversation that one is losing.
At 6'10" I also find that standing up from behind my desk also has great effect....or talking very quietly and getting someone to come closer only to nail them with your point very loudly.
For fun, try making a face that appears to mean the same thing as saying the F word....
But then again my favorite corporate attire is jeans, a khaki shirt and tie....with a sports coat thrown over the shoulder....
Think of another word that has as much energy when expressed as the F word...
I have a couple of employees that I never curse in front off because it would offend them...but then I have others who when I cuss they just giggle and pooh pooh me in a motherly way...
Its not so much the words as how they are used and the intent that matters. In your example of the word 'friggin' that can pretty much be applied to everyother word used by some people.
My favorite now, even though I have never used it is "My bad"
That is a conspiracy of naming something as your responsibility but not taking responsibility and not apologizing...
When someone tells me "My Bad" I usually say, no, its your "F**K Up"
Hello, Dino. So you & I are of an age, as it were? I'm finding mid-40s to be a tricky age. Old enough to write posts such as this with a tone of "I remember when things were not so" yet young enough to be hyper-conscious of sounding like my prudish grandmother.
ReplyDeleteYou make an extremely good point about the middle class &/or the intelligentsia looking for some sort of hip coolness, i.e. authenticity, through swearing like longshoremen (or so the stereotype goes). Similar to privileged white kids listening to gangster/trash-talking rap? Maybe? The middle class (either defined by economics &/or privileged education) always seems to be struggling with accepting the so-called values that they are meant to define.
But then, given this argument, what then is authentic about the middle class AND what is authentic about swearing? Or is swearing just a new age version of slumming?
AND - am I beginning to argue myself into a corner . . . darn it!
TAO - 6'10"?! Wow - a big difference between a man your size using the F-word & a petite woman my size using the same word. Somehow I now feel like the mouse that squeakily roars.
ReplyDeleteI really like your nuanced definition of "My Bad" - though I myself am a bit sick of the phrase - a bit over used in my corner of the universe lately.
I'm actually relieved that swearing has become so accepted. I always had a potty mouth. Golf as a hobby will do thatb to you. I used to think people swore around me so I wouldn't feel bad swearing all the time. I later found that they swore just as much when I wasn't there. Except my wife of course. I still can't use bad language around her. She would F$#$ me up!
ReplyDeleteSquid,
ReplyDeleteI am sure that you hear it all the time...
Next time someone uses it in your presence ask them to define the term for you...
I was informed it means that you have made a mistake and you did not mean to make a mistake...and you should not have to apologize for a mistake you did not mean.
So, is it that you only apologize for mistakes you meant to make?
I would think that one would apologize for a mistake you do not mean to make and that "my bad" would be a mistake you meant to make...
Of course then I had to ask, "why would you mean to make a mistake?"
I couple weeks later I was told, "I am SORRY" :)
Cephalopods have no need of such a language … perhaps … because … we are not amused when the illicit is made explicit; rather we communicate through camouflage (arts) and ink (literature), and these make us colorful enough.
ReplyDeleteI'm late to this party because I had to work at the f***ing jail this weekend, also meaning I missed out on enjoying the beautiful effin' weather!
ReplyDeleteI have been known to drop the "f" bomb, sometimes in places where I probably shouldn't. I do try to keep it under control - except in the confines of my car where I have choice words for every idiot that can't decide which lane to be in, does not know how to use a blinker or believes that drafting is an art they should practice a half inch off my back bumper!
Truthfully, while it can be liberating to let loose, I wouldn't mind seeing a return to a more genteel civility where we are a little more careful of the content of our speech. I mean, are obscenities really the best descriptive words we have in our vocabulary? What if we spent just one day without uttering one swear word? Could you do it? Could I? Not sure, but it might be an interesting experiment. So who wants to give it a whirl?
"the middle class's misguided search for authenticity and originality in a consumer-culture that renders such qualities all but meaningless."
ReplyDeleteI would have wasted half a million words trying to convey what your post does here. In fact I did, when trying to describe my loathing for Starbucks. Really brilliant.
Profanity has become all but meaningless as anything but an attempt at conformity and what offends me the most is that profanity and hyperbole are like pouring salt and pepper on food until you can't taste it.
It's about time we found some other way to express that someone or something isn't good than by references to fellatio, for instance. Such things serve more to distort and strip our ideas of meaning than anything else. It shocks no one any more and if you really want to shock someone, use plain language.
Of course listening to people in their mid forties complain about their age really puts some choice expletives on my tongue.
TAO - a funny suggestion - if I were to ask it of those whom I hear saying "My Bad" the most I would get is a blank stare. They are mostly college students. Enough said.
ReplyDeleteRocky - a swear free day? Now there's an idea. I'm game. Might be a sobering experience. Anyone else?
Fogg - now I don't think Dino & I were complaining, per se, about being 40 ish. More like musing about it. No annoyance intended!
And your salt & pepper analogy is an apt description. This post was inspired by an evening's watching of Hell's Kitchen on Fox with the British explitive king Chef Ramsay. Which makes the salt & pepper analogy even MORE apt!
And yes, wouldn't it be interesting to see whgat other words in our fading vocabularies we could unearth & resurrect if we were to all take a day off from swearing per Rocky's suggestion. Or in Octo's case - a day of no inking.
Ah, the poetry of a well spoken thought...
ReplyDeleteI always tell people that speaking well requires one to think well.
I have been told more than once that I could manipulate anyone! :)
I tell people that the reason I am able to express myself so well verbally is because I stuttered up until I was a junior in college. When you stutter you have to really think quickly to formulate sentences that do not start with words that begin with letters that will trigger a stuttering fit...and since 'w's' and 't's' would set me off I had a lot of words that I had to avoid at all costs.
Most people just respond to a question they actually do not think about the purpose or intent of the question and they do not understand that speech has a purpose.
With speech you not only answer but you also have to capture an idea and an emotion and share them.
That I believe is why swear words come into play; it seems that the only emotionalism we can drum up with with dirty words.
A good speaker is a good thinker. You have to have ideas to speak about and you have to believe in your ideas to share them in an emotional way.
Most people speak without thinking. Cuss words, as used in normal speech, are more a reaction than a logic thought.
Fogg, thanks for the compliment. But you must realize that fortyish for a big lizard is ancient -- time to hobble along forgetfully with one's stylish cane and hope younger predators don't take notice.... I wish that like Tao (he of the 6'10" frame) I could instill fear, but the best I can do is "mild disquiet."
ReplyDeleteSquid, yes, the kids-with-baggy-pants syndrome is rather similar to longshoremanism, I believe -- this is not to condemn pretending to be somebody or something one is not, but it's just that the unoriginal do it so badly!
One great example of cussing used in a really hilarious way, I think, is Larry David's show Curb Your Enthusiasm. In particular, the episode with rapper Krazee-Eyez Killa and the one with the Tourette's-afflicted French chef are "pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good," as Larry would say.
An 8pus who inks his own aquarium puts himself in grave danger ... necessitating an immediate change of water or ... the booby-hatch. In fact, the Almighty Cod hath spoken: Thou shalt not ink under others or thou might ink oneself.
ReplyDeleteOK, Squid, pick a day and do a post so whoever wants to can participate and then we can comment on how the experiement worked out for each of us.
ReplyDelete(Try not to pick a Sat or Sun because if it is my jail weekend, I may have trouble participating)
I'm a big fan of four-letter words, mostly because I think it's really important to defang words wherever possible, and also that a writer of mimetic works needs to be able to reproduce the speech of ordinary people. If ordinary people use four-letter words, my fictitious people aren't going to sound real to anyone unless I also include those words. There is also a further rhetorical advantage to our beloved ancient maledictions -- saying "Fuck you!" or "Asshole!" is likely to get the point across succinctly, whereas "Go grow headfirst out of the ground like a turnip, you suppurating pustule of purulence!" or "Get stuffed, you waste of oxygen!" gives them plenty of time to ignore you and walk away. The linguistic principle behind this is ease of articulation.
ReplyDeletePersonally I would find this far more insulting that an empty F you, which, when you think about it, means nothing whatever and can be said by someone too stupid to feed himself. I do consider the source when being insulted.
ReplyDeleteI'm not talking about writing fiction of course, but I do feel sad about the constant reaching downwards in everything. Somewhere Marx must be smiling to watch us all spend most of our time and money looking like unshaven hobos, dressed in rags and sounding like illiterates. This is the true proletarian paradise and no thanks, I'm tired of the easy way.
"Hraka silflay." Yes, even rabbits profane the spoken word; but look at it this way: If we defang these words, there's not much left to offend anymore. Tis a pity.
ReplyDeleteThat's true too. We've hyperbolised ourselves into a corner. If everything is an extreme superlative, if anything mildly interesting or good is "awesome" what do we do with things that really are?
ReplyDeleteCapt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteI don't see why old Karl would be smiling at the sight you mention -- i.e. at the consumerist reproduction of an underclass-image to replace (that is, deny the reality of) the real underclass all around us, if mostly invisible. Not sure it's even a proletarian image that our raggedy-jeaned compatriots are reproducing: isn't it more like what Marx would have called the "lumpenproletariat" below the working class in which he had so much faith? I rather imagine him sneering rather than smiling....