Recently a reader of one of my columns responded negatively to a YouTube diatribe I copied and pasted to my site. This woman objected—and I think, rightly so—to what used to be called obscenities delivered in the video.
When I was a boy, my mother told me that people who used “bad language” were generally too dumb or too lazy to think of a better way of expressing themselves. I’m not sure I fully buy her argument, as there are places and times when an expletive is highly effective.
In The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Getting Ahead: Dos and Don’ts of Right Behavior, Tough Thinking, Clear Writing, and Living A Good Life (a book I highly recommend for late teens and twenty-somethings), Charles Murray points out that an occasional obscenity may be justified and even strengthen a point. He then goes on to say of Anglo-Saxon monosyllables that “their ubiquitous use is tiresome and pointless, casts a thin coat of grime over the conventional landscape, and degrades your ability to draw upon their shock value when needed.”
In other words, habitual swearing runs counter to its intended effect.
Once I was helping a friend in Boston move some furniture. He normally indulged in a great many profanities, but on this particular car trip he used “f**k” or “f**king” in every possible grammatical form: noun, adjective, verb, adverb. For half an hour, nearly every sentence he uttered was laden with “f**k” this and “f**king” that. Let me add that he was not angry or particularly troubled by some difficulty. He was relating the ordinary events in his life. About halfway through our time together, a mantra began running through my brain: “Economy of language. Economy of language. Economy of language.” His over-use of the word dulled its power and even made him seem more boorish than offensive.
Then there is the juvenile aspect of certain kinds of profanity. A man I have known since college, a farm kid at a national military academy and then later, after his time in the service, a veterinarian, still uses the same language as when he was in military school. His conversation is shot through with all the usual words, and almost always the effect is to diminish the gravity of his spoken thoughts. He sounds like a schoolboy who has just tasted the joys of profane language and wants to share his discovery with everyone else.
Finally, some people spit out profanity not to make a point, but to frighten or intimidate others. We have witnessed this tactic in riots, marches, and protests across the country. Here is a recent example: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4191860/Seattle-teacher-s-profane-speech-calls-murder.html#ixzz4XkxQ1auL
Another example: During the January “Women’s Marches," Madonna used f**k several times in her speeches, and other protests have included curses and profanity that sixty years ago would have caused grandmothers to whap the transgressor over the head with their canes.
This crude approach to verbally beating others into submission comes out in daily private life as well. Two weeks ago, in front of a WalMart, I watched a young man drive his girlfriend or wife into a car with a barrage of curses. A sad and shameful sight.
So maybe Mom was right after all. Maybe it’s time for all of us—politicians, musicians and writers, the everyday person in the street—to take some soap and water to our language.
In The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Getting Ahead: Dos and Don’ts of Right Behavior, Tough Thinking, Clear Writing, and Living A Good Life (a book I highly recommend for late teens and twenty-somethings), Charles Murray points out that an occasional obscenity may be justified and even strengthen a point. He then goes on to say of Anglo-Saxon monosyllables that “their ubiquitous use is tiresome and pointless, casts a thin coat of grime over the conventional landscape, and degrades your ability to draw upon their shock value when needed.”
In other words, habitual swearing runs counter to its intended effect.
Once I was helping a friend in Boston move some furniture. He normally indulged in a great many profanities, but on this particular car trip he used “f**k” or “f**king” in every possible grammatical form: noun, adjective, verb, adverb. For half an hour, nearly every sentence he uttered was laden with “f**k” this and “f**king” that. Let me add that he was not angry or particularly troubled by some difficulty. He was relating the ordinary events in his life. About halfway through our time together, a mantra began running through my brain: “Economy of language. Economy of language. Economy of language.” His over-use of the word dulled its power and even made him seem more boorish than offensive.
Then there is the juvenile aspect of certain kinds of profanity. A man I have known since college, a farm kid at a national military academy and then later, after his time in the service, a veterinarian, still uses the same language as when he was in military school. His conversation is shot through with all the usual words, and almost always the effect is to diminish the gravity of his spoken thoughts. He sounds like a schoolboy who has just tasted the joys of profane language and wants to share his discovery with everyone else.
Finally, some people spit out profanity not to make a point, but to frighten or intimidate others. We have witnessed this tactic in riots, marches, and protests across the country. Here is a recent example: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4191860/Seattle-teacher-s-profane-speech-calls-murder.html#ixzz4XkxQ1auL
Another example: During the January “Women’s Marches," Madonna used f**k several times in her speeches, and other protests have included curses and profanity that sixty years ago would have caused grandmothers to whap the transgressor over the head with their canes.
This crude approach to verbally beating others into submission comes out in daily private life as well. Two weeks ago, in front of a WalMart, I watched a young man drive his girlfriend or wife into a car with a barrage of curses. A sad and shameful sight.
So maybe Mom was right after all. Maybe it’s time for all of us—politicians, musicians and writers, the everyday person in the street—to take some soap and water to our language.
RSS Feed