Thursday, February 2, 2012

Creative Profanity

Please don't read this if you are offended by profane language.  I mean no disrespect.  I apologize in advance...

My body was all lathered up in soap.  My hair was covered in conditioner.  I was in no hurry to finish my Sunday morning shower when suddenly...

BEEEEEP, BEEEEEP, BEEEEEP, BEEEEEP, BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

The fire alarm.  Knowing that no residence hall coordinator in their right mind would schedule a drill at 10am on a Sunday morning, there was really no option of ignoring the ungodly loud blare.  As I wrenched off the faucet and flung my towel around my sudsy self, words I'm not proud of rolled off my tongue...

Fuck!  Goddammit!  10am!  Motherfucking son of a bitch!

I didn't curse until I got to college.  Growing up, I followed a fairly strict moral code.  I swore for the first time in 10th grade on a dare.  I used to use a variety of substitutions - benign words in the place of dirty ones - to decorate my sentences.  Then I came to Penn State.  I made new friends.  My new friends swore... a lot.  Maybe it makes me a victim of social conformity, but before I knew it I sounded like a sailor myself.  I already told you, I'm not proud of it.  However, sometimes cursing is just necessary.  It signifies many intense emotions - anger, frustration, surprise, happiness...  Our society has come to depend on expletives to convey to others exactly what we are feeling.  Think about it.  When you slam your finger in a car door, it just doesn't cut it to scream, "OUCH! That hurt!"  No, in such situations, it has become customary to string together chains of common profanities and shout them out in quick succession.  Whether it's morally incorrect, un-civilized, not classy, what have you - almost everyone curses.

Being forced to look for "rhetoric" around campus, my attention was drawn to our choices in profanity, and I noticed that everybody uses the same curses.  We stick to three or four swear words - sometimes with variations, sometimes matched together.  I began to wonder why clever, educated people limit their vocabulary so greatly when we have the whole English language at our disposal.  We'll search thesaurus.com for the perfect way to explain the water cycle or describe a Civil War battle, but when we want to express a huge discharge of emotion, we confine ourselves to shit.  Damn.  Bitch, bastard, and asshole.  Why?  The pairing of words is a work of art.  What happened to "Christ on a cracker" or "cooch waffle"?  Why tell somebody to "suck my dick" when you could say "may Poseidon rub his watery balls across your scabrous visage!"? (Thanks to http://shannamann.com/blog/creative-cursing for that one.)

I'm getting really offensive.  I'm sorry, again.

Anyway, the point is, if we're going to waste our breath on inappropriateness, we might as well do a good job of it.  Be forewarned - such rhetoric is unsuitable for churches and elementary school classrooms.  But next time a driver cuts you off or Michigan gets a touchdown, be a little more creative!

3 comments:

  1. i find it funny that you posted this because I have noticed it. I am probabally the only person on campus who do not need to curse and I find it funny how people react to situations by cursing.

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  2. This is so funny! Why don't we say things like that anymore? I agree what you are saying, swears now-a-days have lost their meaning. People are just cussing out these words just because they can and I feel as if though people really don't take any offensive to them anymore.

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  3. I think this is a really creative way to view rhetoric with in our society. As you mentioned, I am one of those individuals who do curse to express emotion and vent anger and I agree in most instances we as a nation should try and find other languauge to use. But I must admit, I may be crass in saying this, there are those few situations when a fuck you is just too necessary.

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