Teach Your Kids To Swear

Would you be offended if I called you a clever fucker? You probably would be, and you’d probably have the right, but why exactly? Is it because we don’t know one another well enough for me to assume to have insight into your character or pastimes? Having referred to you as one who engages in sexual intercourse, have I offended you in assuming that you participate in such activities? Have you no patience for those who make assumptions? Is it perhaps that you don’t like to be thought clever, cunning, or thoughtful? Is it then because I cursed at you? Is it because I had the audacity to employ a term beyond the threshold of polite conversation? Like everything else we convey and exchange today, has the content of discourse become secondary to packaging? Am I the only one who thinks polite conversation needs more audacity? What if I called you a magnificent bitch?

I was having a little creative blockage today so I’ve decided to fall back on an old standard. When I can’t think of anything better to talk about I always come back to profanity. When at a function that isn’t functioning or at a party that isn’t mixing, I tend to zest up the salsa dish by inciting a melo-dramatic melo-debate on one of a few irresistible subjects. My favorite is swearing… because everyone’s favorite is swearing.
My guarantee is extended, ask a group to nominate their favorite swear and the chitchat will never stagnate.

Is it possible to be offensive without offending? As a writer I seek to do great things like provoke, challenge and affront. All worthwhile invention is based on offending a prior system of values. As humans we fear that offense, until we eventually embrace it, and await the next thing to hate. This is how I view profanity, an unfortunate and longstanding target of that need to feel offended. But what is it that we truly fear about these anatomical comparisons and matriarchal metaphors? Why are these references so closely related to vulgarity and not expression? There’s a truly interesting part of the brain that motivates us to swear, which drives us to put an outlaw word between the verbs and nouns in our statements. I believe it’s a part that should be cultivated. It’s a motivation born somewhere between exuberance and ignorance, which is akin to where humanity is its happiest. I think it’s a good offense that gets us the victories worth having.

I have a problem with people who have a problem with words. The simple fact is that to assume that some of the words we use have more power than the people sending or receiving them is truly affording us less credit than we deserve as sentient beings. The simple truth behind this simple fact is that if we take the fear away from these words than we’ll dull the edge that apparently and sadly still draws blood. If swears were less jagged, perhaps other words and the assumptions that ride them, would also be less wounding. Perhaps then understanding would be slightly less elusive.

The juxtaposition that yangs this yin is that I kind of like the edge. I like the power. I relish swearing. I see it as a gift given to our verbal exchange. I enjoy it as the zesty garnish it can be added to our automatic, pod-cloned everyday discourse. It can be the performance-enhancing drug to a lame and lagging sentence, the boustier and stiletto heals, the black ace from the dealer, the dark sunglasses… the f**king ’68 Mustang convertible. With a single profane chocolate chip what was once dough is now a cookie, what was once cowering against the wall of the dance floor now wears a snazzy white suit and points his finger high. Swearing gives personality to a series of grouped letters herded by punctuation… yet remains misunderstood. Perhaps it’s for the best, a rebel is never quite the same when he’s invited into convention, a wolf is not a wolf after it’s invited indoors. The key is to keep the little scoundrels offensive though not offending. Let’s keep profanity in the black cowboy hat, but let’s talk for a while about why we love the bad guy so much.

Our language revels in its decadent, verbose inefficiency. Its convoluted girth is its greatest strength. I myself am too often left in the unfortunate position of witnessing this inefficiency go unsavored, watching as my peers and compatriots misuse and underuse the richness of its might. Where many would argue that synonyms are often redundant and thesauruses merely replace creative thought, I say that we are blessed to have a term for every nook and cranny of our world. We not only can fly, but glide, flutter, and soar through a sky, atmosphere, or heaven that can be blue or indigo or cyan. There are words at our disposal that convey exactly what we desire, that paint a picture, and in turn give it a value far higher than one thousand and worth more than the sum of its parts.

Profanity is the tool that we all carry to illustrate the spaces between our ears and our sentences. Onomatopoeia is a term used to describe words spelled to the sound or action they represent; such as growl and swoosh. I believe swearing is the hybrid of punctuation and onomatopoeia, they fill our sentences with emotional mechanics. Much like the way a properly placed pause gives a statement both gravity or levity, and the way an onomatopoeic word describes itself, a swear provides the words around it with the edge that is in itself its own answer.

The Great George Carlin said:
Sh!t
Pi$$
F**k
Cun+
C@cks@cker
M#thrrf**krr
And Tits;
The Seven Words You Can’t Say On TV.
The Magnificent Seven: Seven words that will eternally be honored and condemned. Whether or not these harmless exiles will ever be uttered on the picture box governed by the cowards that believe words are more detrimental then graphic violence and nudity, they will always have power. There will always be a wanted poster hanging for these desperados and I for one thank Mr. Carlin for that. These little darlings are like Robin Hood, feared by the establishment, honored by the public, an outlaw with arrow-splitting aim. A word can’t cut the crap if it’s got no edge.

A good blue streak is like that outlaw folk hero, that reminder of forbidden freedom. After all, where would Nottingham have been without Robin Hood? Clearly he broke the law, but every now and then we need a troublemaker to shake things up with a little take and give. I’m certain that no one living on the residential side of Sherwood Forest was telling their children they should grow up to be an outlaw. What they were doing was saying that they needn’t fear him. Imagine if we were all so astute in identifying the threat?

The unfortunate truth is that swears or cusses were essentially designed to offend. Though now they maintain real estate in a place largely of frolic and revelry, we can’t totally ignore that their evolution is a dubious one. They emerged as blasphemy directed at or in lieu of a Superior Being that didn’t have things going quite to the blasphemers liking. As Puritanism began draping skirts over scantily clad table legs and burning witches at the stake, etiquette gave J.Q. Publique a reason to be offended. As long as there’s been a swear there’s been an ear too delicate too sustain its presence. More often that not this ear shares a head with a mouth that spouts the same barbs in accepted company; most always rather than never the path from ear to mouth is obstructed by a head with nothing in between. Where would we be without those puritan pioneers of piety? How did we get from screaming our displeasure to God to comparing each other to our peepees and hoohoos? And how does one mend an injured ear?

The gift of discourse can be used as a weapon. Isn’t it always the ignorant of this world that turn tools into weapons? There are words beyond swears that go too far. They have a purpose crafted in injury that can have no use passed marginalization. These are words that impugn without merit, that categorize and objectify. I believe there is no place in our language or on our planet for words that paint an unwarranted caricature with a thoughtless brush. They are words that have never been needed. They are the wrath of bullies and the product of cowardly victories. Language should never be used to injure. We should always be careful with the words that have that power.

Any great thing can be overdone. A warm fire can burn too large, a stylish car can be overly ornate, and an overly enthusiastic dad can blemish his home at Christmas time. While carefully placed notes can attract mice to your song, a tune with too much sh!t will send them scurrying. Far too often swearing has crossed the line into gratuity, sullying its fine, foul tradition. ‘Everything in moderation’ is an idiom that governs profanity as well as any other province of creativity. The more treasured and respected a resource it remains, the more effective punch it gives the goddamn words around it.

It is in this vein that we must be cautious in teaching the children the art of comparing others to their private parts and excretions. Hearing a youngster belt out a surly swear at a sibling may never be as warm and delightful as say… exclaiming them yourself, but nonetheless the torch must be passed. Kids test their boundaries as they emerge and mature into the world. It’s always going to be the negligent parents whose children seek out firearms and needled arms in the place of structure and the overly disciplined children who run to them in escape of tyranny.

There is a greater value in profanity than just playful rebellion. There’s honesty and creativity, there’s those moments you utter your deepest frustrations to yourself under dark clouds of glorious filth. What comes out of your mouth when you stub your toe? Truth. What do you bellow at the neighborhood bully when he’s too far for your fists? Rage. What do you exclaim at the height of an orgasm? Ecstasy. How can such things be blasphemy?

Teach your kids to swear. Don’t stifle them when their experimental spirits erupt a f**k here or a sh!t there. Give them license to the play in moors of our language so they can gain a better perspective on the pasture. There was once a time when ‘sex’ was a dirty word parents uttered in the dark from a across the space between twin beds. How foolish does it seem now to have ‘sex education’ swept under a rug and hope kids will lose interest because of what the word could imply? To me it seems about as foolish and prudish as punishing a kid for using a word… a simple expletive… that probably was heard from the person who lays down the punishment. Well, I say teach your kids to swear. I say that the prudes can have their history because they certainly won’t have the future. I say f**k the prudes, it’s only sticks and stones that will stop them.

As with all other things, education is the key. Allow adrenalized exclamation the freedom to cultivate and it will find its proper place. I’m not suggesting, of course, that we’d all be better off if every parent with a child under twelve present their child with a loaded gun and encourage them to toddle off with their playmates. Nor do I think that those parents would be well advised to take a tour of safe injection sites or conduct lessons on joint-rolling techniques at the dining room table. I wouldn’t recommend a section of f’s, s’s, and a’s be covered in grammar, nor would I think it prudent to reward the children for calling grandma an old c*nt. It’s the parents who speak openly and accept calmly the wonder of children that earn their trust in return. Stick to positive reinforcement and education and you can avoid hearing about f**king br*cc*li at the Sunday Dinner Table. Correct them when they refer to your boss as a prick instead of an asshole, and praise them when they find a new way to put three ‘good ones’ together into one sibling insult.

I say this both tongue-in-cheek and tongue-dangling straight out in a demon waggle. I don’t like anything being left out of the game for the wrong reasons. Amidst the fear of fear and getting offended in defense, we keep putting the wrong thing on trial. It’s hypocrisy to tell our young that swearing is somehow morally wrong when in our most honest moments we tend to curse a blue streak. Hypocrisy will never disappear, but its cohorts can be deterred. The Puritan-inspired tradition of pre-emptive offense, with regards to political correctness, must be left the f*ddlest*cks behind. We have to forget what offends us and remember what’s worth defending. Free speech will always be more valuable than costly censorship. Disregard the insults not directed at you, fight the fights worth fighting, change the channel if you don’t like what you see, and remember that words can never hurt you.

Teach your kids to swear. Let them play in the dirt. Prove to them you’ll never be afraid of what they have to say. Teach them to let fly with boundless conscious thought, responsibly but brazenly. If for no other reason, allow them their foul language to take away its danger. To make something legal is to make it far less interesting. Let’s curse out a path to a place where we aren’t afraid of any words, where we aren’t offended for the sake of outdated sensibility, where meaningless symbols aren’t injected into words to cork their jagged tips, where we can get offended by worthwhile causes, like bad fashion sense and overly sassy writing. I want this place to have hypocrisy sitting a little bit closer to the back of the bus, while the tastiest fruits, flowers and thorns of our language hang their asses out the window… mooning French and German and the other wannabes.

This place also has to have free porn.

Have a $#*+ F**king Day,
Patrick Hughes