A "BLEEPING" GREAT COLUMN

By Steve Mason

 

Are bad words really bad and how much should we be protecting children from hearing them?

 

The idea that words have unique powers for good or evil goes way back to the dawn of history and perhaps even before that.  Who know what early humans may have muttered as they painted on the walls of their caves?  We do know that, all through recorded time, the incantation was part of every prayer and every spell.  If you just got the words right, there would be no limit to your power.  Everything from turning lead to gold and defeating a powerful army in the field depended upon knowledge of the proper phrase.  Today, it is commonly believed that certain words still have a magical power to corrupt souls and create chaos in the land.

 

In looking at lists of objectionable words, one finds that they fall into several, separate categories.  There are, for example, those that address supernatural forces – appealing to Beelzebub or damning the god of your choice…from “A” for Apollo to “Z” for Zeus.  In fact, Clark Gable’s use of the word “damn” in "Gone with the Wind" titillated audiences in 1939 every bit as much as did Janet Jackson’s more recent wardrobe failure on national TV.  Proper folks in both eras were aghast…fearing the end must indeed be near.

 

Then there are ethnic slurs.  Though Clark Gable might have been safe, back then, telling a Frenchman/Irishman/Englishman get on a bus joke, in today’s Politically Correct climate only a suitably humiliating mea culpa might save his career.  This mean spirited temper of the time has gotten so extreme that the mayor of Washington D.C. was recently forced to dump a staff member (one David Howard) for using the word “niggardly” in a meeting.

 

Threatening words also include vulgar references to body parts and wastes.  Euphemisms and medical terms for such appendages and effluvia are, on the other hand, perfectly acceptable.  For that reason, television commercials can tout products designed to deal with all sorts of disgusting disorders without fear of offending anyone.

 

And finally, there are those “dirty words” that instantly come to mind whenever someone complains about dirty words.  These, of course, refer to the 800-pound gorilla in the room – sex.  In any reasonably calm analysis of this time and place, one can only conclude that we are living in a sexually fixated society.  Why a perfectly normal, natural behavior should be invested with such mind-boggling concerns is beyond any rational explanation.  Suffice it to say, anything to do with sex can well and truly tip an otherwise sane person off the deep end.

 

Bad words (whether curses or slurs, profane or just plain course) all seem to have one thing in common.  They are familiar enough to be immediately recognized in even the most abbreviated form: as in the A-word, the B-word, the C-word and so through the alphabet.  That eyes and ears will be irrevocably damaged by seeing or hearing the complete word takes the Puritanical to the maniacal…the prissy to the silly.  On the other hand, it is sometimes said that uttering those same words can have a cathartic effect.  This was a more acceptable notion a century ago when it was believed that the body worked like an engine and that the occasional letting off of steam was therapeutic.  Today it is more generally felt that when you stub your toe and only one word will do…that word might not do.

 

But that’s not to say that bad words never do.  There are times when they may be used to signal informality as at a gathering where such usage says: We’re all friends here and not on a formal footing or, conversely, to get attention.   Researchers have found increased activity in an area of the brain – the amygdaloid complex – when presented with bad words so it may actually be said that some words do indeed have singular physical effects, however inconsequential, on others.  But the line between acceptable and unacceptable speech is rapidly being burred by the Internet, satellite radio and cable TV.  Hear a “BLEEP” on this channel and one station down hear the word.  Ask the government for more censorship and in trading freedom for protection you’re sure to eventually lose both.

 

As for bad words having an especially deleterious effect on children, understand that youngsters will quickly pick up on the powerful effect certain words can have and then store them away for future use.  Were the X-word, the Y-word and the Z-word met with indifference by adults, this would not be the case.  In that regard, I was recently on-hand when a mass exodus of grade school students erupted.  A friend had agreed to pick up her granddaughter after classes so, sitting in the car, we found ourselves subjected to a roar of colorful expletives as the doors burst open.  Once seated and driving home, I comment to this preteen honor student that I’d heard an amazing assortment of bad words on the campus.  Which ones didn’t you understand? She asked.  They’re just words after all.  Real evil is in things like incompetent government, Dark Age religions, resource depletion…and they’re all being piled on my generation’s plate.   Thank you very much.

 

Out of the mouths of babes….

 

Contact the author directly at DrSBMason@aol.com