A Swear Jar Would Bankrupt Me

OK...maybe that title is a bit of a stretch because I don't actually go around the house swearing non-stop or anything.... BUT...I certainly have lowered my standards as far as NEVER saying bad words to being very liberal in both thought and deed. 

I don't think I am alone in my increasing liberal attitude toward swearing.  As a culture that first heard the F word used in a mainstream movie in 1971 (M.A.S.H.) we have progressed (maybe progress isn't the right term) to the current likelihood of watching any cable television show that has at least one "four letter" word inserted pretty much in every sentence. It appears that the general public has collectively become more tolerant of naughty words.

So, while I don't presently have a swear jar, if my attitude keeps on it's current trajectory from tentative tolerance to active acceptance, and now heading into the realm of enthusiastic participant...one might say the future is going to require some measure of self-control on my part.

As I see it, this propensity of mine for getting more comfortable with being a potty mouth might, in fact, require a swear jar. With my ever optimistic attitude, I can always tell myself that while my decorum is going downhill, it may in fact allow for a nice vacation sometime in my future.  OR... I could use my jar as a Christmas Club Account and have my holiday fully funded by Thanksgiving. (Given the fact, there is a major election between now and then, I really need to have a plethora of loose change around to fund my jar.)

If I am being honest, though...currently it's not so much as I SAY all that many bad words out loud as much as I think them.  My brain, it seems, is getting more and more short tempered on a myriad of subjects but my mouth seems to mostly remain aware of it's surroundings.  In most cases, as a matter of respect to those around me, I try not to appear as if I have Tourette Syndrome as this would be blatantly unfair to those that actually have that disorder. There is the nagging reality, that I should be able to control my language.

I will confess that the National Nightly News is just bringing the worst out in both my brain and my mouth.  Hardly an evening goes by without me hemorrhaging four letter words in retaliation for the idiocy of  our assorted leaders, or would-be-leaders, or people in leadership roles that can't lead....or just people in the news that generally piss me off.

Of course, I can, justify some of my brain's use of bad language.  I was recently reading a couple of book reviews.  !n Pr@ise *f Pr#fanity, by Michael Adams and What The F, What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains and Ourselves, by Benjamin K. Bergen. Both authors seem to be very "pro obscenity".  After reading excerpts from both books, I am (according to them) doing my body a real service by swearing.  Of course, it really doesn't address the "thinking" bad words versus "saying" bad words but I am prepared to take any and all of the perceived positive effects and call it good. Both authors point out the cathartic nature of swearing, so I am, in essence, by swearing striving for total calm in my life.  
  

I am sure you have heard people say that swearing is the lowest form of communication and only those with limited vocabulary feel compelled to use foul language. I believe neither of those statements to be true. (My brain just said, "F*** them.")  I believe the real reason that swearing became popular was while there is an unlimited supply of words to convey information, there needed to be words that would convey EMOTION.  Of course, that doesn't necessarily hold true in today's use of swear words.  Now it seems we swear just...well...just because mostly everybody does.  A lot of once taboo words have become "conversational" as opposed to "controversial".  Really...when you think about it...a word is only considered bad if the person hearing it, is offended by it.  SO...if I swear with words you are comfortable with, we are just two people talking.  If I say words that offend you then you will deem me as "foul mouthed".  It boils down to everyone having to size up their audience.

Take for example:  Yesterday, I was having lunch with a good friend. My friend is  older than I am (I think she is in her late 70s)  and I have for the most part curbed my use of colorful language around her because I sensed that she wasn't the type of person that would be open to me or my brain tossing 4 letter words randomly into our conversations. As for this particular friend, she is very political which is tricky for me NOT to throw in a lot of obscene words while talking about either of the current candidates for President.

Anyway, my friend was telling me that she was having some problems with the new car that she bought about a week ago.  The car comes with a built in navigation system.  Upon driving the new car, she realized that the "GPS girl" wasn't talking so she called OnStar to find out if there was a setting to turn on the sound.  I gather that the OnStar person could do that from afar but the problem was that once it was turned on,  the "GPS girl" talks REALLY, REALLY loud and my friend couldn't figure out how to turn the volume down.  So she called back to get help in a hurry before her eardrums exploded.  After several minutes of trying to explain to the OnStar rep what the problem was she finally resorted to saying, "Can you get this bitch in the box to shut the hell up?"

If you think about it, (and I am sure this is keeping you up at night) vulgar words always were comprised by four categories, A. Sexual activities or sexual organs B. Religious concepts C. Bodily Functions and D. Denigrating social or ethnic groups.  In many instances the words associated with the first 3 categories have been reduced to fairly commonplace while the 4th category has probably become even more offensive over time.  (Thankfully...we aren't heathens after all....at least most of us.)

I did find a few interesting facts when I was reading  various articles about the evolution of swearing in preparation to this post.  That there was a time when swearing was a sign of social stature and power.  Makes sense that people in power positions can get by with being profane while lower classes or people in vulnerable positions have to mind their p's and q's.  Take for example:  I doubt that any of King Henry VIII's wives told him to F*** off but he probably deserved that and worse.  (I assume this is the case for at least for Catherine, Jane, Anne of Cleves, and Katherine got to keep their heads...intact.)

Henry the VIII deserved some outbursts but perhaps didn't get them.

So, do YOU ever swear?  Are you more tolerant of others that do, as it becomes more prevalent in our society?

We're Discussing Cussing....again

After my post from a few days ago "What Makes Bad Words Bad?"  You are probably going to think I have a preoccupation with swear words.  Just to clear the air,  I absolutely do. 

Just kidding. I wouldn't say preoccupied....   I do find the progression of what we consider acceptable words kind of interesting.   Words that were NEVER, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE  spoken  are now in the titles and lyrics of songs, in movies (even animated) on television,...well.... practically every where.

The reason, I am even bringing this up again is that I was reading (of course, you say) a blog written by a mother of a couple of tweens that was discussing  how she has to research all forms of media to evaluate if the content is appropriate for her girls.  It's more than looking at a rating.  How did it get that rating????

Seems the mom was going to take the girls to see the King's Speech and wanted to do her homework as to the appropriateness of it for her girls.  Makes sense.  She was CONFLICTED as to what  is the standard for the lowest/highest (depending which way you look at this) acceptable limits of sex, violence and/or bad language in the content of a movie based on the age of her kids.  After doing her research it turns out the R rating that The Kings Speech has, is due to the fact there is some swearing.  Not that that isn't a bit of a worry, but it least it didn't have the trifecta of "off limitedness".  That of course, would be graphic violence, sex and profanity.

 I didn't realize until reading her article that the King's Speech has an R rating.  I went to this movie.  (Loved it by the way and my guess would have been PG 13) Without having to consider ratings at this point in my life, I guess I give very little thought to what may or may not be age appropriate.   Turns out that during one the scenes where George VI is stuttering, he gets frustrated and says FFFFuuu******* several times. Stuttered but still. 

Well, back to the mom.  She figures if that is all that is wrong with this movie she is good to go.  She has some theories too.  Her kids hear this word at home on a semi-regular basis evidently so it's use has already been explained. As with all parents, I am guessing, her explanation goes "It's a bad word  that mommy and daddy shouldn't use.  Don't do as we do, do as we say. Never, ever use that word."  That should cover it, right?

She took them to the movie which they, too, loved.  During the part of that stuttered curse they laughed. No shock, no grimace or no covering the ears going la la la la.

Now according to the article she figures this one bad word is a drop in the bucket of what her girls are exposed to on a regular basis. The fact that they listen to pop and especially rap music will provide them with a  steady stream of swearing, sexual innuendo, violence and lyrics  that objectify mostly women but some men.


A few years ago, I was driving to do a training class when a song came on the radio that contained the F word.  Me, being from the old school,  am shocked.  How in the hell did that get by the censor?  I think the song was James Blunt's "You're So Beautiful", obviously the unedited version.   Are you humming it???hhhmmmm...she caught my eye, as I walked on by...she could see on my face I was flying high....hhhmmm He was only flying  in the clean version, though.


In order to evaluate how far we've come since Jame's Blunt's 2005 song, I decide to Google the top 40 hits of today.  Well, we have made strides as far as dirty words go.  Just in the top 10 there are 2 songs that have the F word right in the title.  I guess their thought is to take the direct  approach and remove any doubt  if this song is appropriate for the tween set.

There seems to be such a total acceptance of this trend of word promiscuity. Let's just check out the metamorphosis of the ways people could express their approval since the 1930's or so til  now.

 Cat's  Meow...Coolsville....Cool......Groovey...Hot....Sic....Bitchin'....  This might not be entirely accurate as I am not very cool and get confused as to how often the words cool and hot have come and gone in all of this.  I am pretty sure though that as far as appropriate words versus inappropriate words, most parents would take either hot or cool over bitchin'. Am I wrong???

Turns out we have made great advances  in "pushing the limits" in movies, music and television.

In this time of my life, I rarely have to give any thought to programming or content.  I find a lot of things interesting and amusing on cable TV and movies.   I am entertained by the catchy lyrics of Pink's F****** Perfect song.  You might remember that I posted the edited version on Feb. 28th in the post titled Monday, Need I Say More.

  I just wouldn't want it quite so readily available if I was starting over having  children.  OMG, I just threw up a little bit!!!  (To hubby, if you are reading this, I will go right now and wash my mouth out with soap.)

The Good....Parents that work hard to teach their kids value

The Bad....Kids are exposed to so much it makes parenting that much more difficult

The Weird.... I was looking looking at some of those Top Ten videos to see if there was anything the 10 and 12 year old set could or should be watching.  Gosh, I am glad I don't have tweens in the house.

 However, while browsing around on YouTube looking at videos,  I did run across a South Park video called Kyle's Mom is a Big Fat Bi*** which I found  funny in a very inappropriate way (and it  has a  really catchy tune).  I didn't add it as I know some of my regular readers don't go in for that kind of humor. So in my effort to keep this more on a PG13 rating the rest of you will have to  go to YouTube and look for it. 

First Annual CODIP Awards

As promised on yesterday's post, I will be picking through the very best of the quotes that Charlie Sheen has been favoring us all with for the  last three days.

This nonsense of his has taken on a life of its own.  This morning Donald Trump is on Popeater with a video saying that he warned Brooke Mueller's mother not to let Brook marry Charlie. He goes on to say that a person can be a jerk as long as they maintain great ratings.  I posted a link for you to see this clip.  I don't know how long it will be available, however. 

http://www.popeater.com/2011/03/02/donald-trump-advice-charlie-sheen/

I am sure a lot of you are getting tired of this whole thing, but I will say that some of the quotes that are coming into play, will become part of our pop culture.  No matter what happens as far as Two and a Half Men goes, you can bet people will start saying they cured things "with their mind".

One of the positive sides to all the media coverage for Charlie, is that it is keeping some of the other bad celebrities under less scrutiny.  Christina Aguilera's DUI and Lindsay Lohan's court appearance on her felony theft charge are flying somewhat under the radar today.  YOO HOO

So let our show begin....

Music intro playing.... curtain rising....

The first annual CODIP Awards

 (as you probably remember the acronym is for "Coming Off Drugs Isn't Pretty")

                                           

The Grandiose Ego Award goes to.......

"I'm tired of pretending I'm not special. I'm tired of pretending I'm not a total  bitchin rock star from Mars."

 (commentary:) this one got extra points for the fact he added "from Mars".)

The Totally Delusional Award goes to.....

I'm on a drug.  It's called Charlie Sheen.  It's not available because if you try it you will die.  Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body.  (commentary: WOW, is he trippin' or what?)

The Nugget of Truth Award....goes to

People can't figure me out, they can't process me, I don't expect them to.  You can't process me with the normal brain.  ( commentary: I suspect he might be right on this one.  We would have to all get high to relate to his logic)

But wait!!! There is an honorable mention in this category!!!

"Blame the Studio for giving me this much dough when they knew who they were giving it to.  This is on them.  (might have a bit of a point--jab--jab)

I Can't Believe You Even Said That Award ....goes to

 “I have the 10,000 year aged brain as well as the boogers of the seven-year old.” (Commentary: WTF does that mean????)

 The Obvious Truth Award  ...goes to...

 "I'm still alive, which is pretty cool," (Commentary:  Well, he did get this one right)

Something to Be Proud of Award....goes to
“The last time I took drugs I probably took more that anyone could survive. I was banging seven gram rocks because that’s how I roll, I have one speed, go. I have a different constitution, a different brain, a different heart. I got tiger blood man.”  (Commentary:  Not everyone can say that, but not everyone would want to)

The What's Not To Love Award...goes to....
 “What’s not to love? Especially when you see how I party, it was epic. The run I was on made Sinatra, Flynn, Jagger, Richards and all of them look like droopy-eyed armless children.” (Commentary, I think
that two out of those four might take offense.  Sinatra and Flynn might not care at this point.)


Most Stupid quote by the Goddesses ....goes to...
'We run errands, we eat, we play with the kids, we watch movies, I watch a lot of Two and a Half Men', she adds. There is nothing broken here' (Commentary:  Maybe not broken, but SERIOUSLY TWISTED!!)


The Most Offensive to Regular People  goes to

"They lay down with their ugly wives and their ugly children and just look at their loser lives and then they look at me and say, 'I can't process it.' Well, no, and you never will! Stop trying! Just sit back and enjoy the show." (Commentary:  While I am trying to figure out if I am the ugly wife or the ugly child, I will just say that I am having trouble processing it.)



The Most Outrageous Quote Award  .....Again we have a tie....the awards go to.....

1.“… I’m sorry man I got magic and I got poetry at my fingertips most of the time and this includes naps. I’m an F-18 and I will destroy you in the air and I will deploy my ordnance to the ground.”

 2. Right. Well, you borrow my brain for five seconds and just be like, ‘Dude, can’t handle it. Unplug this bastard.   Because it fires in a way that is, I don’t know, maybe not from this particular terrestrial realm. When you have tiger blood and Adonis DNA, it's like, get with the program, dude.

(Commentary:  There is no possible explanation for either of those statements, but let's assume that I for one don't want to borrow his brain.)

Well, that the end of our show!!!! As I am sure we all have seen enough of Mr. Sheen, I am having our entertainment portion of the program be something other that Charlie.  While I was thinking of an appropriate band to sign off our awards show, I was a little stumped.  I couldn't find a song called, "Guy coming down off crack and has a "I'm special so let's not pretend" complex.  OK let's go with he is an ALL STAR in his own mind, anyway.






The Good for the Day...At some point this too shall pass.

The bad for the day....There will be some other celebrity waiting in line to behave badly.

The Weird....No REALLY COULD IT GET ANY WEIRDER THAN THIS????

What makes bad words bad????

Well, it turns out that Charlie Sheen is still running his mouth non-stop in interviews.  Seems that no one is immune to watching the growing  lists of "Charlieisms".   The publishers of  various Quotationaries (yes, there are books of nothing but quotes) are getting new material by the bucket full, today.  I did happen to pull out my own version of Webster's Wit and Humor Quotationary, just to make sure Charlie wasn't already being quoted from some earlier escapades.  No, he's not in there.  The only Sheen in the book is Fulton Sheen.  But if we are reaching for a quote,  there is one of Fulton Sheen's quotes  that sounds  like something Charlie would have said today. "Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius". 

So, blogees, I have noticed that some of Charlies quotes are being marketed today in various forms. Bunny cards with quotes, Kitten cards with quotes and so forth.  Money to be made.  Pure gold.

Because there is still the ABC interview tonight, I am holding off with my picks for the best of the quotes in various categories. Here are a few of the awards that will be given but there will be others I am sure. He is after all, STILL TALKING

A.  Totally Delusional Award
B.  Nugget of Truth Award
C.  I Can't Even Believe You Said That Award
D.  The Most Stupid quote by the Goddesses Award
E.  Most Offensive to the Average Person Award

Check in tomorrow for the awards show:  The CODIP Awards (not to be confused with Displaced Idiot Politicians from past post but CODIP awards are for  Coming Off Drugs Isn't Pretty)

So, blogees, to tide us over till tomorrow.  I have another little issue to be discussed.  (along with a story, of course)

For those following along, let's go back to 19 moves ago, 20 houses ago** hubby and I moved to Moline, Illinois.  Evidently, I looked incredibly young and stupid at the time as the manager of the 3rd floor walk up that we had rented asked me if I knew what a garbage disposal was.  HMMM (offense taken).

Anyway, I got a job at IBM working in the area where we did key punch for various customers. (the early version of contract workers)  I was in a fairly small office working as a  key punch operator for a  farming co-op that is no longer in business.  Let's hope that my career at IBM didn't have some direct impact on the co-op's demise.

I will assume that maybe most of you out in cyberspace don't understand how data was keyed into these machines, that is unless you were one of the unfortunate souls that had to resort to the world's most boring job, as I did .  You typed  information on a keyboard that caused the machine to punch a series of codes into little data cards.  The cards were loaded into trays and at the end of the day they were sent down to a data reader.
In other words, you would be typing just like we do on a keyboard today but you had no way of seeing errors.  You just saw cards with a lot of little holes. 






very cool technology in it's day

One particular day I had spent all day typing, loaded my tray, and sent it down to the data readers ONLY to find the next morning that there were some errors that I had made and had to start from the beginning to figure out where the erroneous punches were made.  As I started OVER, I mumbled the horrifically bad bad word  S**T.  At that point in my life I didn't realize a word starting with F even existed or that might have been the word I used.  Very young and very naive

On with the story...one of my co-workers who prided herself on being the nicest, purest, most wholesome individual on the planet, all but went into a dead faint.  OMG, how could she work with someone this vulgar?
Now, for my part, I was not having any of it.  I was having a bad day and not willing to take crap off of her.  So, I say to her.  What is the difference of me saying S**T and you saying the word crap (which was her go-to swear word). According to her "crap" isn't a swear word. It is more the equivalent of "darn" or "heck".   I beg to differ, I say. If you are angry and say crap is it any worse for me to say S**T.

So today, I looked up on the Internet "Is crap a bad word?" (not because I am just getting around to it but I keep hearing it touted around lately) Turns out a lot of polls have been done on this and the decision is NO it is NOT.(tacky yes, bad no)  Take into account that this isn't 1971 anymore and we have grown by leaps and bounds in our ability to swear. 

Now what got this all started for me was that a couple of weeks ago, I needed some window defogger. After searching around for various products, I found Cat Crap Defogger that is manufactured for use by skiers to use on their goggles/glasses (whatever skiers call those lenses on their face).  I am thinking what an interesting name for a product.  Just think of all the advertising campaign opportunities. 

In the mean time I am doing some of my power TV watching with pal TIVO and discover, not one, but 2 new versions of that word. I heard the word craptabulous (in the Urban dictionary as staggeringly and fancifully lousy) and craptacular (also in the dictionary as the highest level of crappy).  Who knew????

To bring home all of this craptastic info, I was listening to Orrin Hatch's interview this morning on NBC.

And low and behold: 


"Every state has different demographics, every state has different problems," Hatch said, according to a Utah Statesman report published Monday. "It's good to allow them to work out their own problems rather than a one-size-fits-all federal government, dumb-ass program. It really is an awful piece of crap."

I heard that he later apologized.  Too bad, he didn't need to as far as I am concerned. If he was passionate about what he was saying, it is far far from being the worst thing he could have said.

MY THEORY...The real test of whether you are swearing is "what is your intent?"

If hubby does something that is really ticking me off and I say you are a F****** moron???  Now that is swearing !!! That might be a bad example as I don't think he has ever ticked me off to that extent. Are you reading this, honey????

As opposed to,  he has told the funniest joke EVER and while I am laughing hysterically say, honey, you are a F****** moron.  That is not swearing.


**This is based on the 21 moves after marriage AM.  This is how we measure time at our house. We calculate where we lived at the time and then we can figure the year.  Very handy tool..


I happened to notice when I was browsing through new releases today. There is a song
"What are Words?"  How perfect of a title to go with my subject today.  Of course, it has nothing to do with bad words....oh well...

HERE'S TO A REALLY STAND UP GUY!! HOPE HIS NEW SINGLE TAKES OFF LIKE A ROCKET!!



The good for the day......Actually worked my real job today (realtor). It only partially sucked.


The bad for the day.....I have been super busy but haven't gotten everything done that I wanted to.  Thank goodness tomorrow is another opportunity.



The Weird for the day....Speaking of bad words...did you realize that the words dammit I'm mad spelled backwards is dammit I'm mad. (thanks Rhonda, you are clever)