Holy (cow), cussing is too prevalent these days
The other day my bathroom door jumped out at me and hit my toe;
at least that’s what it felt like and what prompted me to shout an
expletive at the wooden, inanimate object.
Holy (cow), cussing is too prevalent these days
The other day my bathroom door jumped out at me and hit my toe; at least that’s what it felt like and what prompted me to shout an expletive at the wooden, inanimate object.
Stubbing a toe is one of the worst household injuries imaginable, even though the pain normally isn’t long-lasting. It’s almost worse than splattering oil on your arm while cooking (Adam’s wife: “How could you get that injury if you don’t cook?”) or burning a finger when trying to take something out of the oven without an oven mitt.
Men aren’t always the smartest creatures, so we somehow feel that by cussing after an injury we’re getting retribution. We hit ourselves in the thumb with a hammer, but it was the @#*@#*! hammer’s fault when the pain reaches our brain.
I don’t consider myself much of a cusser. I’ll drop an “s-word” or an “f-bomb” now and then, such as after the toe-stubbing or a paper cut or an ankle twist, but I don’t generally feel the need to use an expletive for emphasis in my everyday conversations.
It was rare to hear my parents cuss when I was young, so perhaps that plays a role in my reluctance to throw those words around. I certainly do my best not to let the words slip around my sons, though they have been around a time or two when I’ve muffled a bad word after a stupid injury or after the basketball team I’m coaching turns the ball over.
My sons know that cussing is inappropriate, certainly around adults, though I’m not sure they’d form or join a No Cussing Club like a 15-year-old did at South Pasadena High School. The kid, who wanted to make the first week of March “No Cussing Week” in Los Angeles County, has also created a Web site (www.nocussing.com), written a book, and been on national talk shows. The 10th-grader wants California to have a cuss-free week next year and he wants to take the movement worldwide.
Some teens would say that’s a bunch of bull.
I often defend this age group in my column, as many of them do get a bum rap, but there are quite a few who love the salty language. Perhaps it’s because cussing is generally prohibited by adults, which makes it that much more appealing to young people.
Lunch or break time at the high school features roaming packs of friends who don’t have their language filters on. We adults who walk past them remind them of the inappropriateness of their language and many of them apologize.
I’m not often labeled a social conservative – nor do I like to blame the media for societal ills, but it’s hard to find a television reality show or a hop-hop song on the radio that doesn’t contain a few bleeped-out words. Maybe that makes cussing seem okay to young people. Or maybe I’m just full of … misguided thoughts (wow, that was close).
I am 40 and my parents are a few decades older than that, yet I still feel uncomfortable using a curse word in front of them. They won’t give me a timeout if they hear me use blue language, so it’s not that I am scared to cuss. It’s just one of those ingrained parent-child things – unless my dad and I are watching the Niners or Giants blow a seemingly safe lead late in the game; then all bets are off as we yell at the television.
My grandpa would use the colloquial “Dad Gummit” to express his displeasure without cussing and my dad uses “What the Sam Hill!?” which is much cleaner than using a phrase involving a word that starts with an “F.”
Let’s hope the Southern California teenager’s anti-cussing crusade finds success. Cursing has its place under our breath when it serves as an emotional release and response to a stupid household injury, like when I step on the tines of a rake and the wooden handle flies up and hits me in the gut.
Otherwise, scrubbing the potty mouths is a noble – if futile – effort.
