Over at Pandagon, Jesse and Amanda both have fine posts about cussing*/cursing/using nasty words.
http://www.pandagon.net/
These posts have brought the trolls out in force, as they tend to.
This topic is one that annoys me, too. Our friends on the Right, see, believe that it is all right to hold the most reactionary, hateful, vicious beliefs -- that oppressing the Other is just fine, that the poor deserve to be poor because they are ignorant and lazy, that Jesus wants us to bomb people who don't follow his religion, that it is okay to beat your children into submission with belts and sticks, that giving women the vote ruined this country, that the only proper reaction to your enemy is to shoot him in the head, twice, and once in the chest -- all of that, believe those on the Right, is perfectly fine speech. Nothng wrong with any of that speech.
But say fuck?
Say shit?
Say damn?
That, my love, is stepping way over the line.
This is where my jaw drops.
Hate speech is evil, in my universe. Not saying fuck. Saying hateful things. Not saying shit, saying hate your neighbor. Not saying goddamn it, saying poor folk are too lazy to work, that's evil. But no. Over on the right, they can call someone a traitor, they can say, with a straight face, that the Jews had it coming (as Vox Day did in one sweet little post) because they are so annoying, but so long as they don't mention hell anywhere, why, they're on the side of the angels, they are.
As I said to my brother, when the kid was nine months old and he said fuck in front of her, and then apologized to me: "Sorry," he said. "I guess I shouldn't say the F word in front of your kid."
"No," I said. "Say the F word all you want. Just don't say the N word in front of her."
*BTW: Difference between cursing and cussing is a regional one, having to do with whether you come from an area that has a rhotic or a non-rhotic dialect. A rhotic dialect is one that pronounces that post-vocalic R (the R that follows the U in cursing): if you come from a place that is rhotic you tend to call it cursing. If not, you call it cussing. Many Deep South Regions are Non-Rhotic. (They say Fah for Far and Yahd for Yard and Cuss for Curse.)
Another BTW: Bad words in our house are called Mama Words and the kid is not allowed to say them. This is not because I think they are actually Bad Words, as I have explained to her. It is because I know the folk out in the world will think she is ignorant and bad if she uses them. I have told her when she is fifteen or sixteen she can start using them -- when she is old enough to accurately judge situations appropriately, and know when it's all right to use them and when it isn't. I've explained to her about ignorant folk who think words are bad and how they're wrong. So? Right now? When she's angry and wants to use a nasty word? She says, "Oh -- MAMA WORD!"
3 hours ago
4 comments:
I have older sisters and there are couple of those older sisters that really hate to hear me cuss, and so, around them, I don't, cuss that is, unless it is a really good reason. Yet, they, the two most religious, often use the N bomb like it is going out of style, that it won't be there tomorrow if they don't use it at least two or three times a day. I say that it is ugly and wrong and for them not to say it in front of me and they say I am right but they roll their eyes or raise their eyebrows, actions I know mean they are only placating. And my husband's famous words are, "You sound so ignorant when you say the F word." I say who sounds ignorant, you can't even say it and furthermore I can use....and the fight is on. My point their isn't one--wait there is too, those very hypocrites who call me down for my cursing or cussing or the very ones who have such intolerance. Well, my husband is tolerant but only becaus I have made him that way. I believe, being a liberal is contagious and the main spreader of this wonderful disease, bushco. Yep, he opens the wound for all those liberal ideas to hop right in and that is way fucking cool.
God my grammar is was so bad in that post but I have an excuse, I am flying high on amminophylline and because if that, I think way faster than I can ever type and so long after my thoughts have moved on, my fingers are trying to remember what to type so it's my fingers fault.
I agree completely with everything you said, but I have my own pet peeve: the naming of sexual parts as bad words. Recently, a 20-year-old friend of mine said "Excuse me, but _____ is a douchebag." I suggested it was wrong for him to say that, and he said, "No, you don't understand--he is a really bad dude." I said, "No, you don't understand--when you say that, you are saying there is something wrong with my vagina." He laughed, then thought about it a moment. His girlfriend laughed, then thought about it a moment. I doubt he will stop using the word, but if he uses it in front of me again, I'll give him the same response.
Same goes for all of the sexual organ words, too. Why do people refer to people they don't like as sexual organs? This one crosses to both genders, at least, but I still don't like it. It shows that, as a culture, we still believe that sex is bad, and that includes the so-called liberals.
I'm with you on that one. I don't use the C-word for that reason -- though I did, briefly, in my hoodlum youth -- and I hate the liberal blogs who call folks pussy and such.
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