I’m not what you’d call a prudish guy, but what’s with all the foul language these days? And I’m not even talking about the ethnic slurs ~ Jesse Jackson with his “Hymietown” crack, or Hillary Clinton calling that guy a “f—ing Jew bastard,” or Don Imus and his “nappy headed hos,” or Al Sharpton calling Southerners “crackers,” or Kramer with his … well, you know. Naw, that’s just old-fashion, garden variety meanness.
What I’m talking about is profanity as civil discourse ~ reducing the language to it’s most coarse common denominator during casual conversation. It’s like tattoos. Used to, the only time you saw a tattoo was on the forearm of a sailor after he’d come off a drinking binge. Now even haute society thinks it’s chic to have ink all down their leg or on their rear-ends. They, too, have embraced casual profanity.
How has this happened? TV, movies, on the street ~ how has gutter talk worked its way into popular culture? Every other word in the movies is “F” this and “F” that, and the gag dejour on television the last few years is the word “penis.” For some reason, that just cracks people up. Reality shows? Are you kidding me? And don’t get me started on cable. Profanity’s been stinking up cable ever since cable was invented. Even strangers on the street presume to use the most vile language in the most casual conversation.
“Say, stranger, how do I get to Ooltewah?”
“Oh, just stay the F on this road, you can’t F’ing miss it ~ GD little SOB of a town, but F me, it’s growing, F’ity F, F.”
Huh? Anyone? Anyone?
According to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll, 74 percent of people in this country say they routinely encounter profanity in public. Sixty percent admit to routinely using the F-word (operative word being “admit”). Even Even ol’ Dick Cheney, when he’s not out gunning down his buds, has tossed out the F-bomb right there on the Senate floor.
Show you how things have changed, when I was growing up there were preachers who were so uptight about profanity they couldn’t even say “hell” in mixed company. They’d talk about the eternal torments of heck and heckfire. Now we’ve gone the whole other way.
I guess, like every other societal ill, it falls to me to come up with a solution.
For instance, you want to know what a bad word was in 16th century England? “Swive.” I’m serious. Before 1500, that was a very rude word. What could swive possibly mean? Another one was “zooterkins.” Zooterkins, swive … these are nonsense words. They’re meaningless. What we should do is bring these words back and drop some of the ones we’re currently using. Or we could just make up a bunch of new nonsense words, like zipperdink, voot, or geezlewig.
I mean, really, for a sitcom, what’s funnier than zooterkins? Homer catches Marge in bed with Flanders and says, “What is the meaning of this?”and she just looks sheepish and says, “Zooterkins, babe.”
Huh? Am I right?
Another major problem area when it comes to foul language is the highway. I’ve heard cussing on the highway that could melt the rubber right off your tires, some of it even coming from me. Do you know what members of the Xoxa tribe in South Africa do when they want to insult somebody? They just tell them, “Hebeshako.” That means, “Your mother’s ears.”And really, do insults need to be any more disparaging than that?
So my solution is, let’s start using these words as our new swear words ~ zipperdink, voot, geezlewig, swive, hebeshako. Make up some of your own. Learn them. Assign them their own vulgar meanings and commit them to memory. Next time you want to use the F word, substitute one of them instead. For example, “Hey, you vooting geezlewig! Get your brooting pladdle out of the fast lane! Hebeshako!”
See what I mean? This would make for a kinder, gentler profanity. You don’t like my solution, then voot you. And the zippersnottal you rode in on.
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