#@*$ The Curse Words, Man

Hello, my name is Maria, and I am a word prude.

I admit it. I really dislike harsh language. It's not because I'm too sensitive. It's because I can't go anywhere or say anything without over-analyzing the psychology of every situation. Imagine being trapped in my brain with a continuous APA-format scholarly article scrolling by at all times.

Really, it was hard enough to be in my head before I got my degree...

When a man leans out his car window, drops f-bombs in place of every possible part of speech, and road-rages all over some poor woman in a mini-van, I just can't let that go until I've figured out why he did it, why he felt it was justified, and what kind of effect it has on him and the woman on the receiving end. 

This post is not meant to persuade and it's certainly not meant to judge. I grew up during Alabama's Age of Mediocrity-- I learned lots and lots of curse words during the football seasons of my early childhood. Consequently, I thought, "GIT 'EM, GIT 'EM!" was among them.

Who knew?

So, I have absolutely no room to judge. I started cursing in the 6th grade and finally gave it up shortly before high school graduation. I wasted a lot of years and creative wit on hurtful verbal garbage. I've tried to live my adult life without it and, as a result, I've been able to recognize the ways in which my emotional and spiritual health is better without it. Here's what I've got:

1. Cursing perpetuates anger. 


We curse for humor. We curse as part of commonplace language. But, it seems that anger is what inspires people-who-don't-curse to curse and people-who-do-curse to curse more.

One of my deepest struggles is bitterness. If my anger were chili, it'd be some darn good stuff because I can stew all day long. I don't need any help sustaining my anger and, if I let it get the best of me, I can work myself into a bitter, sarcastic rage without using a single profanity. 

Cursing is like throwing another log onto a growing fire. It may feel good and it may very appropriately illustrate how we're feeling (and I'm always a fan of communicating emotions) but, in my experience, it's best to let the fire die. We may be 110% justified in our anger but, what does it do for us? Nothing. Anger is a reaction, not a response. We can't do anything good or constructive until we regain control of our emotions.

One of my favorite quotations is by Aristotle. He says, "Anyone can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person at the right time and for the right purpose and in the right way – that is not within everyone’s power and that is not easy."

Can you remember the last time you made a good decision while you were angry? I know I can't. Our words flow from our emotions, but our emotions are also affected by the words we use. In my experience, the very first step in defusing anger is by not indulging in anymore anger. Calling a friend "that ******* *****" is not going to calm me down and it's definitely not getting me on the right track to loving them like Jesus. Speaking of which...

2. Think about what you're saying. 


There is no such thing as a nice curse word. I mean, duh, that's the point, but even if it weren't referred to by small children as "the b-word," bitch is not a nice thing to call someone. Ever. I don't care if you're a fan of cursing or if you hate it, the meaning behind these words is foul.

The reason we call them "bad words" is because they have a bad connotation. Their meaning is inherently negative or crude. When we call a woman a bitch, we are not just reducing her to a label, we're reducing her to an extremely low and mean-spirited label. Of course, this same cruelty can be achieved without cursing, but I'll get to that in a minute.

You get what I mean. We've all heard the pro-cursing argument that words are just a few letters strung together and they don't really mean anything. Wrong-o. That's precisely why we shouldn't use them. Because they have meaning and their meaning is harsh, regardless of whether or not they're directed at someone.

Or the meaning is just gross. I've talked a lot about anger, so this is the reason I give for commonplace, "harmless" cursing. The modern meanings of ass, shit, and fuck are just not things we talk about freely, unless we're using curse words. We've been desensitized to what they stand for.

Say you aren't angry at all-- you knock something off the table and, as you lean down to get it, you casually say, "Shit." My classic stop-cursing challenge is this-- the next time you're tempted to say "shit," say "soupy diarrhea" instead and see how your friends react. Yeah, not so cool anymore, is it? Because you're talking about feces.

That's right. Gag. I am not sorry for what I have said here today.

3. It's the spirit that counts.

I mentioned before that we can be very hurtful without using curse words. You can make anything sound like a curse word as long as you say it with the right attitude. And that's how this ties into #1.

There's something very jarring about my name when people use it in anger. Maybe it's because three syllables pound out into a really satisfying phrase (Muh-ree-uh) or because the syllables are really harsh when you split them up (Muh-REE-uh or Muh-ree-UH), but I just do not like the sound of it when someone is mad at me. It feels like it's being profaned and used against me-- I don't want to be Maria anymore when you make Maria sound like "shitwit."

The word doesn't have to mean anything negative to make it negative. It's the spirit of what you're saying that counts. But, as this is a blog post about cursing, we are talking about words with negative meanings and they are commonly used with an attitude that is angry or sarcastic. When you combine a hateful attitude with a word that means something nasty, then say it out of anger, you've got one yucky linguistic parfait. And I'd just rather not take a bite, you know?




I've got to keep peace in my heart. When my words are peaceful and kind, I can be peaceful and kind. That just doesn't come naturally to me, believe it or not. I have to work at it and, for me, as a recovering anger-addict, I can't curse. If I do, it's because I feel absolutely wretched. But, does it do anything to help me? No. It just carves that anger a little deeper into my heart and solidifies it because I've confirmed it aloud.

So, there you have it. I have finally explained myself after years of being mocked and I've admitted that I'm both a word prude and a recovering anger-addict. I'd say this has been a productive blog post. To leave you with something to laugh at, here is the best swear-fest ever recorded. The three phrases my husband and I use most often are: (1.) I love you. (2.) We're out of napkins. (3.) "And! Tits."

It took me 20 minutes to find a clip that wasn't a techno remix or a ringtone.

AGE RAGE!

Recent events have forced my exciting list of topics out of order. I had debated for a while on how I should approach this. Reality TV-bikinis-suffering-cursing? Suffering-cursing-bikinis-marriage? Anxiety-procrastination-doubt-resignation-execution? But, now is not the time to talk about the 5 Steps of Writer's Block. I NEED TO TALK ABOUT DISCRIMINATION.

Been. There. Done. That.

Now, hold on there, hipsters. I smell what you're steppin' in-- what could I possibly have to say about stereotyping, assumptions, and general not-niceness that hasn't been said before by greater and more talented minds? There will be no letters from my Tuscaloosa jail. But, I believe that the last year of my life has provided me with a very unique perspective on the mind-bending issue of age in America.

From my experience, I can tell you that nothing will warrant a faster and more predictable response than anyone under the age of 40 implying that they are somehow no longer young, whether in perception or reality. It seems to be the last form of blasphemy that everyone in America can agree on-- it is the pinnacle of arrogance for a person with no lines on their face to complain of weariness in their soul. Only the old can be weathered. Only parents can have wisdom. Only the misfortunate can feel burdened.

But, maybe you've never encountered the "sit down and drink your beer" attitude that I'm so familiar with. I don't want to get ahead of myself and I certainly don't want to stereotype people-who-are-older-than-other-people as holding no stock in the opinions of those-people-who-are-younger-than-them. That would be counter-productive. So, I'll start with a universal experience.

There you are, just livin' life, doing some recreational Facebook stalking, and you come across a picture of someone who cannot possibly be old enough to have a Facebook... but, they don't just have a terms-and-conditions-legal profile. Their picture is from their high school graduation. They're, like, 10! They can't go to college!

Roll Tide.

As soon as you recover from that missed-a-step-and-fell-on-your-face sensation, you realize how this relates to you. You may have lost track of how much other people have grown, but you've always been perfectly aware of your own continuous evolution. And, until now, you were okay with it. But, in comparison to this kid who aged a decade overnight (the only rational explanation), you're very rudely forced to comprehend just how much time has passed. And, just like all of us, you say, "I'm so old!"

This is totally natural and, while "I'm so old" may not be the most linguistically accurate reaction, we all have those moments that just make us feel just a bitty-bit elderly in comparison. The ensuing reality realignment doesn't ease the discomfort. Dads-- you have to adjust your parental approach when your son finally becomes taller than you. Siblings-- you must acquire faith in God's mercy and protection when you realize that your little sister will soon be driving. Aunts and uncles-- you must learn that asking, "What grade are you in?" is no longer appropriate after you have attended your niece's wedding.

But, as normal as this experience is, there's always one. Ugh. There's always one person nearby who is older than you-- two months, two years, two decades older, doesn't matter!-- and they say, "Oh, no you're not!" and trump you with the experiential smack-down card. They tell you about how, one time, they fell asleep in a forest for 1,000 years and, when they woke up, Rome had fallen, the colonies had united, and someone had invented the Internet. So, you're not allowed to be shocked by the fact that some kid went to their senior prom. My internal reaction:

Hopefully, this silly anecdote served its purpose in priming your brain for the exceptionally commonplace ways in which the weight of age is hardwired into our pride. In daily conversation, we use it as a petty power trip. Even if no one has ever done this to you, you've seen it done. Most recently, I watched an adult engage in the one-up war with a small child. The little boy just wanted to brag a little, get some approval for climbing to the top of the monkey bars the fastest, and he was met with, "Well, when I was a young, superior human..."

Here's the point. Age has become associated with  power and simplicity. It is now a tool for putting people down and making assumptions based on our perceptions of how much a person can do, learn, and accomplish in X number of years. Like skin color, nationality, and religion, it has become another tool for stereotyping. It's a quantitative device that is used to ignore the qualitative worth of every person's unique and individual experience. 

Choose your caption-- "That was so profound," or "She makes no sense at all."

I'll say it differently. Numbers are concrete and measurable. We like that. It gives us a dependable and predictable logic to live by, so long as we don't stray too far into the advanced stuff-- all Hell breaks loose after Algebra II. And, the cool thing about numbers is that they retain their value even after we've done the Relativity Tango all over them.

Unfortunately, our expectations associated with age do not vary as much as our perceptions of how far $10 should stretch. We all pretty much agree that a 3-year-old should not be trusted to pour their own milk from a new gallon unless we're in the market for a funny YouTube video. But, what about the recent college graduates who are ready to take on the world with maturity, integrity, and a serious work-ethic and are being treated like children instead?

My reward for having enough sense not to Occupy anything...

Don't get me wrong-- I have a whole conga line of blog posts coming up on how we, as young adults, are continuously selling ourselves short. But, my most recent experience has transformed my passive cognitive dissonance over acting 30 and looking 16 (in spite of being 22) into an indignation that I just can't let go.

For the sake of brevity and prudence, I have to skip the details but I will say this-- saying "You're so young" in a work environment IS NEVER OKAY.


Of course, it was said to me with intended kindness, as a sort of consolation. It was meant as, "It's okay, you're so young." But, here's why it makes me steaming mad:

1. In a work environment, that is irrelevant. I was hired for my perceived qualifications and competence. If I perform in a way that meets those expectations 99% of the time, then I'm obviously winning the war against my crippling disability of youth. If I make a mistake that any new employee could make, even if it were a 60-year-old ex-housewife who had similar job-related inexperience and took up the position as her first outside-the-home job, then inexperience, not age, is not the issue.

2. Everyone has the right to have their shortcomings pointed out for what they are-- shortcomings. What if the workplace mistake is not something that is unique to new employees? What if it's a reoccurring issue that isn't resolved with a one-time oopsy? My shortcomings were labeled as a problem of my youth. I was told, in consolation, "You're so young." No. It's not because I'm young. It's because I'm disorganized or because I communicate poorly or because eating the printer paper is just not acceptable office behavior. Whatever it is, I have the right to be told that some relevant characteristic of my behavior is the problem. Any older employee would be given that same courtesy. Which leads me to the final, most infuriating point...

3. I can't do anything about my age. All I can do is wait. But, I deserve to be treated with respect now. Saying, "You're so young" as a consolation, an excuse, or a write-off is like saying, "It's okay, some people are just born stupid." I can't go home and age significantly enough to satisfy someone who has decided that my age is the final issue. If I'm doing something wrong that can be changed, tell me what it is.

ABSOLUTE VERBAL LETHARGY

I feel better now. As an after-the-fact disclaimer, I must say that there are definitely occasions in which age is a real limitation. And I do genuinely believe that inexperience is a legitimate reason not to hire someone, especially given the number of seasoned professionals who are pounding the pavement right now because of the state of our economy. But, I've nearly expended my store of rational thoughts! Time to wrap this up!

Trust the young people... we make mistakes. But, the last time I checked, so does everyone else. It may take some of us a few more years before we come around to the idea of college being over but, for others, it's time to go join the big We're All Just Winging It party. We are as competent, intelligent, mature, ethical, and responsible as you will allow us to be. Don't put us in the age cage.

That's all I've got! AGE RAGE: COMPLETE.