Why I Love Cuss Words browseall articles links random comments? emailpage bookmarkwhy Ilove cuss words Itry to keep it clean, but sometimes a good fuck! or shit! providesjust the release I need. Say you drop something heavy on yourfoot. "Gosh darn it!" doesn't cut it. And why shouldit? Language Hitlers say anyone who swears doesn't have sufficientmastery of the language. Bullshit. Invoke Shakespeare when someonecuts you off in traffic and see how fast you get through town. Some folks can remember whenthey first heard the word "fuck" or "shit."I only remember being convinced that saying fuck would send mestraight to hell, where you can cuss to your heart's contentas demons stick red-hot pokers up your ass. At one point I wassuch a twisted goody-too shoes that I blackened out the singleinstance of the word fuck in a book of monologues by Steve Martin.I've been fucking overcompensating every since.Swearing, cussing, takingthe Lord's name in vain — all have been frowned on for centuries.George Washington told his troops to refrain from "the foolishand wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing." OK,George. You get butchered by better equipped Brits and watchyour fingers and toes fall off in the cold. Can you hear thosepoor troops mumbling after the general rode off? "Fuck you,ya wigtop, and the horse you rode in on." As part of his research oncursing, professor Tim Jay (author of Cursing in Americaand What To Do When YourKids Talk Dirty) assigned his students to count "bad"words in the movies. The findings are not surprising: Moviesduring the Eighties contained an average of 81 cuss words, upfrom 24 during the Sixties and 1.5 in films before that. Is thatan indication of a decline in our society, or is Hollywood makingbetter movies? War is not some goddamned action-adventure movie.Even in classics like Gone With the Wind, do you think ScarlettO'Hara was shaking her fist at the sky saying, "Goshdarnit,I've lost everything and might die here of starvation?"Hell no. She was spitting, "Fuck them Yankees." Butnobody gave a damn.What galls me most is howhypocritical the media is when it comes to swear words. RichardNixon swore like a bat out of hell on the Watergate tapes. Butno newspaper had the guts to print the transcripts with the expletivesnot deleted. (Not only was Nixon an asshole, he had no talentusing cuss words.) Reinhold Aman, a former university professorand editor of MaledictaPress, calls it "newspaper censorshit" so publicationsthat quote him have to print it as "newspaper censorsh—."He wonders, as I do, why so many publications spell fuck as f—-.What is that? Find? Food? Fork? The newsweeklies will show itsprissy readers graphic photos of mutilated Rwandans, but if someonesays, "This is bullshit," it causes a ruckus. If youare going to disguise words that might offend some readers, whatabout h—-s—ual, ab—tion or s-x?Once you start looking forcensorship, it pops up everywhere. Entertainment Weekly onceprinted an interview with Howard Stern and used dashes to disguisewords like asshole and fuck. But in the same article, the magazineincluded a graphic description of a Stern writer sticking hisfinger up someone's butt. When a Republican congressman calledBill Clinton a "scumbag," the New York Times didn'tprint the word. Instead, they called it a "vulgarity fora condom" (?) and later "a euphemism for a despicableperson." That narrows it down.More recently, the journalismreview Brill's Content began censoring "naughty" words.In one issue, it quotes a court document: "Hotseattle alsoasked if I had seen a picture of his naked c--k." Is thathow the affidavit printed the word? Probably not. So the quoteisn't accurate. In past issues, this hardhitting magazine hasalso censored fuck and bullshit (the latter in an essay by investigativejournalist Bob Woodward). I wrote editor in chief Steve Brillto ask about the policy. He told me that these words be blockedout because, "My kids read my magazine." Maybe he shouldcall it Brill's Children's Content.My favorite example of pruderyhas to be when Men's Health — a magazine read entirely bypeople with penises — quoted Robin Williams explaining howto save a stand-up routine. If all else fails, he said, "gofor the d—- joke." Can you believe that? A men's magazineafraid of the word dick.All of this is why, to getto the point, I have launched the Society to Highlight IngrateTerms (SHIT). Just as the National Rifle Association believesthat a good gun owner is an educated gun owner, SHIT remindsits members that cuss words relieve a tremendous amount of tension,but only if used with respect for their power. SHIT will educatepeople to use swear words properly. For instance, shit is anall-purpose word; cussers should use it when failing an examor watching a favorite team cost you $20 by blowing a huge lead.However, if you use lose more than $20, that's a fuck. If you'redealing with the IRS, that might be a shit or a fuck, dependingon who did your taxes; if you're dealing with the FBI or ATF,that's always a fuck.Among other cuss words, assholeis good for the boss or moron coworkers or in-laws, but motherfuckershould be reserved for more weighty situations, such as whena mugger shoots you even after you give him your wallet, or yourealize you're slipping off the edge of the Grand Canyon as youback up for a family photo. I hear motherfucker invoked for thesimplest of transgressions, such as a foul during a basketballgame. No, no, no! "Fuck you" will suffice, or maybe"What the hell?" Motherfucker is a fairly serious accusation.Membership in SHIT is free,but we do expect members to uphold certain standards. Childrenmust be encouraged to use cuss words properly, or not at all(if a toddler wants to say shit when he falls on his face, he'llsay it. Give him time). We do not swear at police officers, becausethey have guns. And although swear words exist in all languages,SHIT uses the English standard. Members are, however, permittedto say "Pardon my French."Should you lack the controlto use cuss words only when warranted, you may suspend your membershipby saying aloud in front of two witnesses, "Fuck SHIT."Remember to burn your membership card. news updateIn 1963,the satirist Paul Krassner created a brilliant poster that readsFuckCommunism. Who could disagree? Here KurtVonnegut weighs in.In 1997,Superior, Wisconsin, judge Charles Schaefer denied unemploymentbenefits to a woman who quit her job at Kentucky Fried Chicken.The woman said she quit because of the amount of vile languagein the workplace. Schaefer ruled, "Use of vulgar and obscenelanguage can promote group solidarity."Actor RupertEverett: "I don't mind bad words — for instance, fuck.I think it's amazing that it's a swear word. After all, it'ssomething most everyone likes doing. It's sweet and harmless.We've overanalyzed things to make something pejorative out ofan experience that's so nice. That's a weird madness."In September2000, then-presidential candidate George W. Bush was caught bya microphone calling a New York Times reporter "a majorleague asshole." Typically, the press had a more difficulttime than Dubya spitting the word out.In July 2001,the 138-year-old official newspaper of the Church of England,the Church Times, printed "fuck" without blocking outthe letters. It occurred in an article about the hostility exhibitedtoward some nuns, such as the sister who had a lout scream inher face, "Fucking nun!" She replied, "I can beone or the other, but not both." The Church Times editorsaid he spelled the word out because it's "not an uncommonword these days, even in church circles." He also said,"The anecdote depends on that word." Amen.In October2004, the editor of the Chicago Tribune dispensed a team to theprinting plant to pull a section that contained a story aboutthe word cunt. While the word was never used in the story—ithad the headline "You c_nt say that (or can you?)—thetop editor decided that readers would be offended even by thediscussion. So she and other company employees pulled the WomanNews section from every of the paper before it left the plant.In February2005 the New York Times ran a review of a book by a college professorcalled On Bullshit.The review began this way: Harry G. Frankfurt, 76, is a moralphilosopher of international reputation and a professor emeritusat Princeton. He is also the author of a book recently publishedby the Princeton University Press that is the first in the publishinghouse's distinguished history to carry a title most newspapers,including this one, would find unfit to print. The work is calledOn Bull - - - -. The opening paragraph of the 67-page essay isa model of reason and composition, repeatedly disrupted by thatsingle obscenity: 'One of the most salient features of our cultureis that there is so much [bull]. Everyone knows this. Each ofus contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation forgranted. Most people are rather confident of their ability torecognize [bull] and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenonhas not aroused much deliberate concern, nor attracted much sustainedinquiry.' " The review continued for hundreds of more words,repeatedly using [bull] to substitute for the word bullshit.It also missed the irony completely when the reporter quotedFrankfurt as saying, "I'd been concerned about the prevalence"of [bull], he continued, "and the lack of concern for truthand respect for truth that it represented." "I usedthe title I did," he added, "because I wanted to talkabout [bull] without any [bull], so I didn't use 'humbug' or'bunkum.' " Talk about bullshit!In March2005, Glen Matlock, formerly of the foulmouthed punk band theSex Pistols, declared, "It's pathetic when people just swearfor the sake of it."In August2005, a newly released update to the Canadian Press Caps andSpelling, a reference guide used by many journalists, adviseseditors to spell out the word "fuck" when it appearsin news stories. No dashes or "the eff word." Mostcoverage of the change did not spell out the word.In September2005, science writer Natalie Angier of the New York Times tooka long, deep look at the history of human swearing. "Researcherswho study the evolution of language and the psychology of swearingsay cursing is a human universal. Every language, dialect orpatois ever studied, living or dead, spoken by millions or bya small tribe, turns out to have its share of forbidden speech....Even the Bible abounds in naughty passages like the men in IIKings 18:27 who, as King James translation puts it, 'eat theirown dung, and drink their own piss.'... Investigators have examinedthe physiology of cursing, how our senses and reflexes reactto the sound or sight of an obscene word. They have determinedthat hearing a curse elicits a literal rise out of people. Whenelectrodermal wires are placed on people's arms and fingertipsto study their skin conductance patterns and the subjects thenhear a few obscenities spoken clearly and firmly, their skinconductance patterns spike, the hairs on their arms rise, theirpulse quickens, and their breathing becomes shallow.... One researchernotes that studies have found that if you're with close friends,the more relaxed you are, the more you swear. It's a way of sayingthat you're so comfortable here that you can let off steam andsay whatever you like.... Frans de Waal, a professor of primatebehavior at Emory University in Atlanta, said that when chimpanzeeswere angry 'they will grunt or spit or make an abrupt, upsweepinggesture that, if a human were to do it, you'd recognize it asaggressive.' Such behaviors are threat gestures, Professor deWaal said, and they are all a good sign. 'A chimpanzee who isreally gearing up for a fight doesn't waste time with gestures,but just goes ahead and attacks.'... By the same token, he said,nothing is more deadly than a person who is too enraged for expletives— who cleanly and quietly picks up a gun and starts shooting."In its February2007 issue, Reason magazine reported that the FCC had for once"reaffirmed the right to swear during a newscast."The commission reversed an order from March 2006 in which ithad ruled that the utterance of "bullshitter" on CBS'"The Early Show" had been indecent. The reason? Ithad occurred during "news" programming, although ithad been said by a contestant from Survivor. In its originalruling, the FCC had said that the fact that the word had beenheard on a news program made it particularly disturbing. Neverthelessit insist that "there is no outright news exemption fromour indecency rules."In his bookThe Stuff of Thought:Language as a Window into Human Nature, Harvard professorSteven Pinker hypothesizes that cuss words may be the missinglink between animal vocalization and human language. "Ithink the same parts of the brain are involved when you bumpyour head and yell, 'Oh, fuck!' as when you step on a dog's tailand get a very sudden howl," he tells Wired. He notes thatbrain-damaged patients who lose the power of articulate speechoften are still able to cuss. "Cathartic swearing"may have evolved to startle and unnerve an attacker, i.e., therecipient of "Go fuck yourself" almost invariably istaken aback by the sentiment.In December2007 Sister Kathy Avery told students at St. Clare of MontefalcoCatholic School in suburban Detroit that they could not swearin school. To help them out she then read a list of all the forbiddenwords and phrases. "It got a little quiet in church,"she said.To mark the50th anniversary of a San Francisco judge ruling that Allen Ginsberg'spoem "Howl" was not obscene, a radio station in NewYork in December 2007 considered reciting the work over the air.But it resorted to posting the poem online since the FCC potentiallycould find it $325,000 for every curse word, which could totalin the millions of dollars.Accordingto a study published in the Leadership and Organization DevelopmentJournal in 2007, swearing and other taboo language, in moderation,may help boost morale by creating solidarity among co-workers.Men use it to lob friendly insults at each other, and women useit to be assertive.In October2007 a judge in Scranton, Pennsylvania acquitted a woman chargedwith disorderly conduct for cussing out her overflowing toilet.Her neighbor, a cop, heard her through the window and reportedher. The judge ruled that her language "may be consideredby some to be offensive, vulgar and imprudent," but it isprotected by the First Amendment.In July 2008,according to the Times of London, students taking their GCSEEnglish exams were given points for writing anything, includingobscenities. One student who wrote "fuck off" was givenpoints for one point for spelling and one point for conveyinghis meaning successfully, for a total of two out of 27 possible."To gain minimum marks in English, students must demonstrate'some simple sequencing of ideas' and 'some words in appropriateorder,' " the paper reported, which the grader thought thestudent had achieved. He said, "It would be wicked to giveit zero, because it does show some very basic skills. It's betterthan someone that doesn't write anything at all." He saidhe would have given the student an additional point had he usedan exclamation point.In June 2008,a New Mexico appeals court ruled that a Los Alamos man couldnot legally change his name from Variable to Fuck Censorship.In July 2008,according to a South African news station, a police officerwith 22 years on the force was fired for using the word "fuck"in front of his boss.cuss wordbookstore English as a SecondF*cking LanguageExpletiveDeleted: A Good Look at Bad LanguageTheF-Word: Its History and MeaningEroticThesaurusElbert'sBad WordCussControl: How to Curb Your CursingSwearing:A History of Foul LanguageBadWord DictionaryBawdy Language: EverythingYou Always Wanted To Do But Were Afraid To SayDepravedand Insulting LanguageNTC'sSuper-Mini Forbidden American EnglishTheSlangman Guide to Dirty EnglishStreetSpanish: The Best of Spanish SlangStreetItalian: The Best of Italian SlangDermo!:The Real Russian Tolstoy Never UsedMerda!:The Real Italian You Were Never Taught in School!Mierda!:The Real Spanish You Were Never Taught in SchoolScheisse!:The Real German You Were Never Taught in SchoolZakennayo!:The Real Japanese You Were Never Taught in SchoolvisitorfeedbackFrom DavidParkins:Yeah,yeah, I know that people speaking their minds is liberating andall that but societies and cultures have always had standardsof that which is deemed decent and that which is not. I grewup in a time when it was deemed not cool to swear in public.Sure, we swore amongst friends and in private and away from earshotof others, and the result was a less aggressive, less despondentoh screw it all kind of existence. I like a society that is respectfulof other people and keeps swearing in its appropriate setting.Please.Thisfirst appeared in my fanzine, Chip's Closet Cleaner, Issue 11.Seealso: TheKing of Dirty Words (article)WordsNear Cuss Words in the Dictionaryfuchsine n [F fuchsineprob. fr. NL Fuchsia; fr. its color] (1865): a dyethat is produced by oxidation of a mixture of aniline and toluidinesand yields a brilliant bluish red.shittah n, pl [Heb shittah]:tree of uncertain identity but prob. an acacia from the woodof which the ark and fittings of the Hebrew tabernacle were made.mothercountryn (1587) 1: the country of one's parents or ancestors, 2: thecountry from which the people of a colony derive their origin,3: a country that is the origin of something.asseverate vt [L asseveratus,pp. of asseverare, fr. ad- + severus severe] (1791):to affirm or aver positively or earnestly.Copyright© 1994-2008 cc Media, Inc. All rights reserved. LegalnoticeThankyou for visiting ChipRowe.com. Comments? |
|
