Bad Words and Walking

[ailbhe]

Yesterday morning early we brought Linnea to the playground in the rain and two tiny boys - they were very tiny, this is me saying it, I'd know a tiny boy if I saw one, though I couldn't reliably identify a large one - were casually using the word Fuck. They weren't swearing, or swaggering, or talking about sex - it was an ordinary punctuation word, like "um" or "er" to them.

I found this very sad.

Shortly after we first moved to this house, I observed a parked car on the opposite side of the street, and a man shouting at a boy to stop being a fucking idiot and get in the fucking car. The boy was pre-pubescent, or possibly barely pubescent but I don't think so, and the man was definitely old enough to be his father, so it seems probable that he was.

I found this infuriating.

Is this a terribly oldfashioned attitude? I mean, I don't generally have a problem with adults swearing in front of children, though teaching tiny tots obscene language is more amusing if you use erudite obscene language, but there's something very depressing about the use of perfectly useful swears as non-words. And I just don't think people should swear at each other anyway, especially not adults swearing at children. It's nasty and yuk.

In other news, the Health Visitor says that Linnea can walk, so I can stop being all self-effacing and saying "She doesn't do it for very long, you see, so maybe it doesn't count." She's nine months and three days old, and she can walk.

That's over a month earlier than I did it. I called my mother to let her know.

This morning, Linnea and I slept in and then danced to Dolly Parton. It's a good way to start the day.

Comments

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

I don't tell the kids not to swear at school, when they do, which is fairly rare. I find that forbidding it fuels it, it gives it weight. I do tell them that there are a few words that really annoy people -- sometimes different words for different people -- and that (if they just swore) that word is one that usually bothers a lot of people, like strangers and grandparents, and that they should find another word to use for the same thing. There are people who think of "poop" as naughty, while others don't, so it really does depend on the person.

At any rate, when it doesn't become forbidden, they seem to lose any sense of it being something exciting.

That said, if parents are using it constantly, if they can't think of any more creative way to express an emotion, then kids are going to pick it up in the same contexts, exactly the same way they learn any other aspect of language.

Yay for walking!

[ailbhe]

I don't really mind children swearing per se swearing (though if they're young enough it's funny, which they find annoying), but the children I observed weren't - they were just using the word fuck as a valley girl uses like-y-know. Or whatever it is that's sentence polyfilla these days.

And I don't like adults swearing at children even if all they say is blast or poot.

swearing & walking

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

One of my pet hates is people who swear in general conversation. I just want to slap them! I save swearing for when I trip over things & enjoy the odd muttered b*llocks under my breath so the littles can't hear *g*

Yay for walking! Andy's dad walked at 10 months apparently, but Kate monster waited until 15 to do it properly. Andy himself waited until 18 months as apparently didn't see the point as he could crawl or be carried by mummy. One day he wanted to help daddy mow the lawn & was told thet he could push the lawnmower, so just got up & walked!!!

[k425.livejournal.com]

It's not an old-fashioned attitude, but according to the Guardian yesterday it's a middle-class attitude.

I am middle class, I can't deny that. And while I'm realistic about older kids swearing I think it's sad when small kids do it especially without even really knowing what they're doing.

I didn't realise you'd been an early walker - no wonder L is! Well done her!

[baronscartop.livejournal.com]

I have been known to use the occasional cuss word.

In fact, I believe in it. I once composed an essay about the proper use of cussing to get one's point across (citing Appetite For Destruction as a perfect example of how to do this effectively), but as I cannot now locate this essay perhaps it was only composed, and not actually written. I look forward to the day when someone says to me, "There's no need for that kind of language," so that I can reply, "Pardon me, but I have a degree in English Literature, and I am a writer. I will keep my own counsel as to which words are appropriate at which times, thank you kindly," but alas I have been waiting ten years for this opportunity with no end in sight.

So okay, I swear a lot. A metric fuckload, even.

But one of the reasons I had to quit the warehouse was because it was creating a habit whereby Fuck was used not merely as puncutaion, but to indicate the space between words in even the most otherwise-neutral of sentences.


Parents shouting at kids is another matter entirely, and an epidemic in my area. Someday soon I am going to suggest to one of these parental paragons that if she did not want children, perhaps she should have kept her legs shut.

(See? Swearing is for emphasis. Insulting requires vocabulary.)

t!

[ailbhe]

My mother believes that swearing should require vocabulary, too, and not involve comparing people or behaviours to perfectly innocent and pleasant animals, organs or bodily functions.

It's *hard* to use "fuck" as a casual interjection when you have been brought up to think about what you're saying. Mind you, in front of my mother, no-one even says crap... Though Rob said Bugger, once. She "didn't notice", which is what she does. It's very very effective.

Mind you, if Rob says "fuck", run away. It means bad things. He doesn't swear. At all. He almost never says Damn or Blast or Sugar or Poot or Bollocks or God or... it's *really effective* when he does.

[baronscartop.livejournal.com]

> My mother believes that swearing should require vocabulary, too, and not involve comparing people or behaviours to perfectly innocent and pleasant animals, organs or bodily functions.

This is why I'm trying to replace my usage of "cocksucker" (since, hey, I happen to be in favour of this practice, I even encourage it) with the epithet "ratfucker," which not only implies lack of consent on the part of the sewer-dwelling rodent as well as subject's inability to score with one's own species, but also contains a couple of nice slides (R and F; not sure proper term) as well as those expressive little plosives.

> It's *hard* to use "fuck" as a casual interjection when you have been brought up to think about what you're saying.

In my example, it's more a case of having taught myself to think about what I'm saying.

> Mind you, if Rob says "fuck", run away.

As you might expect, the danger signal from me is... silence. More to the point, stillness.

t!