The trouble with language is the same as the trouble with
just about everything else: stupidity. A living language is a fluid thing that
changes with usage. The English of today looks and sounds very different from
the English in Shakespeare, which in turn is different from the English in
Chaucer. While change is not entirely bad, the trend I have witnessed during my
own lifetime is change based most frequently on stupidity. It starts with a
rule of grammar or precise definition and then people, in this case ignorant
people, misuse the rule or word frequently enough so that the definition or
rule changes ‘through usage’. As a result, adjectives are now adverbs and once precise definitions are “officially”
muddied to mean almost anything the person using them wants them to mean.............all of it making clear communication more and more difficult.
Another complication is the misunderstanding, willfully or
not, of a concept. One of the most frustrating things to witness is the person
staunchly adhering to a religious precept or even scientific principle that
they have completely gotten wrong. (The best example of this one, is the claim
that “evolution is only a theory” by a person stubbornly unaware that the
caveats and conditions for a scientific ‘theory’ are much more rigid and
precise than those governing one’s theory on who took the last Oreo out of the
cookie jar.)
But since this is an “adult blog”, I would like to explore
an “adult” form of language: profanity.
Now ‘profanity’ itself has some interesting definitions
ranging from the religiously blasphemous to the socially offensive. And under
the umbrella of ‘profanity’ you have : cursing, swearing, vulgarity, and within
religion, taking one’s god’s name ‘in vain’. All once very different things,
now thanks to usage, all jumbled together as if there were no differences
between them.
Cursing used to mean expressing a wish or even petitioning
some supernatural entity to inflict harm on someone we didn’t like. By
religious standards, this was condemned as a bad thing to do. And even
secularly, it certainly reveals less than kind intentions towards our fellow
man. Cursing also encompasses varying levels of malevolence from hoping someone
falls on their ass to invoking a god or demon to strike someone down along with
their entire family for generations to come. Now, however, saying ‘shit’ is
considered ‘cursing’.
Swearing used to mean inviting retribution on oneself or one’s
family in the event of breaking some pledge or oath being “sworn to”. It could
also be merely inviting a god in as our witness to some personal declaration. (“I
swear to god, I’m going to stick my foot up your ass!”) It is my understanding
that the invocation of a negative action by a god, or even just including him
in, for our own secular purposes is insulting and offensive to the god thus
invoked.
Vulgarity is simply using a coarser form of speech than
polite society would care for. What I love (hate) about this aspect is the
totally nonsensical way in which certain words become more reviled than others. I
also enjoy the arbitrary ranking of things for unflattering comparisons. (Everyone
wants to be a wise old owl, but how many want to be the male offspring of a
female dog? ) Body parts certainly get their share of targeted use too. I think most people like penises ……..either on themselves or others…….
and yet no one wants to be a dick.
(Personally, given my affinity for anuses, I’d much rather be an ‘asshole’
than a pancreas.)
But rather than go into every word ever used offensively, let’s
look at three expressions: ass, fuck, and damn it. All are vulgar to some
degree but over time ‘ass’ has worked its way into very common usage. (Who
besides a nurse or Forrest Gump refers to a backside as ‘buttocks’?) And do
people even mean ‘buttocks’ every time they say ‘ass’? If you call someone an ‘ass’,
don’t you mean ‘jackass’? (See, we're back to those unflattering animals again.) And if you call someone a ‘jackass’, is that not just
as bad as saying ‘ass’ without the ‘jack’? And if you say, “hmm, you have a
sexy ass”, is that not a compliment.......... albeit a vulgar or possibly unwelcome one? Still, pretty far from wishing a person some horrific death, wouldn’t you say? But even
society has softened on ‘ass’. Maybe because everyone has one and even acts likes one often enough, we just don't mind it as much. It certainly does not raise the number of
eyebrows ‘fuck’ does.
And why is that? What is it about ‘fuck’ that bothers so
many people that they feel compelled to refer to it as the “f-word” as if
uttering it is akin to saying “Voldemort” rather than “he who must not be named”?
It used to be a vulgar word for copulation and who hates copulation? It almost
makes no sense as a true curse because you are sort of wishing something on someone
that the person would probably welcome. Granted over time it has come to also
mean being grossly taken advantage of…..and no one likes that. (I’d rather be
fucked than fucked over.) And it also means being completely botched….as in ‘fucked
up’. It can be used to express love and hate. (“Oh baby, I’m so crazy about you
I’d love to fuck you all night long……What? You don’t love me? Ah, then fuck
you!”)
And maybe that’s what scares people so much about ‘fuck’…………it
can mean anything and everything. So much power and potential in 4 letters might
just be too much for some people.
But why resort to ‘fuck’ when there’s “damn it” or “goddamn”?
Sounds harmless, it almost has a playful cadence. It’s most often just sort of
a sigh of frustration everyone can relate to, though it certainly can be
directed at a person. But here’s where I am confused. If a very large
percentage of the objection to various profanity originates in religion, then
isn’t “damn it” the worst curse of all? Personally, I’d rather go and ‘fuck
myself’ at someone’s behest rather than be consigned to everlasting flames in a
pit of despair. Because that’s what you’re really saying with that silly little
phrase. And who exactly are you asking to execute that sentence of eternal
damnation but the same entity who so stringently insisted that you not invoke
him in such a manner?
One of my favorite observations on the whole “damnation-cycle”
of cursing is the myriad of seemingly acceptable ways religious people find to
get around it. Leave out the ‘god’ in ‘damn you’ or ‘damn it’ and well………technically…..you
didn’t say his name. (As if someone else is capable of damning things.....though beavers are pretty adept at damming things) And the whole 'wishing a horrific fate' aspect
is fine I suppose because….well, you didn’t say ‘fuck’, right?
And the best has to be “G. D.”! I know a fairly religious person who uses “G.D.” as if they were now protected by some divine legal clause. ( Um, if you believe in an all-powerful and omnipotent deity, don’t you think he knows he’s the “G.” in your “G.D.”? If I was that god, I’d be doubly offended…….first for having been invoked against my express wishes and secondly for being assumed an idiot.)
And the best has to be “G. D.”! I know a fairly religious person who uses “G.D.” as if they were now protected by some divine legal clause. ( Um, if you believe in an all-powerful and omnipotent deity, don’t you think he knows he’s the “G.” in your “G.D.”? If I was that god, I’d be doubly offended…….first for having been invoked against my express wishes and secondly for being assumed an idiot.)
At the end of the day, it’s all just silly semantics. More
people are offended by ‘fuck’ than ‘shit’, so a sex act suddenly is worse than
excrement. If through ‘common usage’ any
of these words suddenly switch places on the arbitrary hierarchy of offensiveness
who knows what the top curse words of the future will be? ( “trump you,
you hillary!” )
It’s all just fucking ridiculous.