Lately I have been extremely aware of people swearing around me. Not like it is happening more often, just that I am much more aware when it happens. I don't usually swear at all, except occasionally when I am very frustrated, angry or hurt (like I just cut myself or something). I dont' think much about it, it just isn't really part of my vocabulary. But some people in my life swear a lot, as part of their every day speech. And it is starting to bother me. It's almost physically jarring for me to hear it, because I just don't hear it very often. When I used to teach in a school that did not have language under control at all I heard swearing so often that I barely noticed it. But now it really jumps out at me.
And I don't really know what to do about it.
I know I swear myself (even if it is not very often) and so just because of that I don't fell like I can say something to someone else about it. Plus the fact that I don't like to hear it doesn't really have anything to do with the person's choice of language. Some people really don't like having to hear people talk about God or Jesus or anything related to that. That doesn't change my right to talk about it. I think that they have as much right to be offended by my choice of language as I have to be offended by theirs, even if it isn't exactly an equal comparison. Swearing has become pretty culturally acceptable and if a person doesn't have a personal moral code that forbids it, then why shouldn't they swear?
Things like this always make me think about how we define and talk about "rights". Why does one person have the right to speak their mind, but another person doesn't because people are offended by what they say or how they say it. Why do we have the right to not have to hear foul language but that other person doesn't have an equal right to use whatever language they choose? When we talk about the rights that we have in this country that people fought and died for, why do we pick and choose who gets to have what right in what context? It isn't that I can't understand both sides, its that I understand both sides too well.
And it still leaves me wondering about what to do about my increasingly sensitive ears.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
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Hearing swears doesn't phase me all that much, I swear a fair amount, though I try to keep it to the "milder" ones. But people who swear in their writing really bothers me, espcially F--- (I dunno if your blog censors or not, so I'll just do it myself) As a general convention of fiction, you're supposed to swear infrequently because it's much more, well to use your word, jarring.
ReplyDeleteTotally aside from that though, I think swear words have a bum rap. Everyone assumes they're somehow offensive in and of themselves, that something about that word is "bad". That's not the historic or contextual reality though. The reason most words are considered "swear" words is because they were a sign of being of low class. It's not that the words themselves are bad, they aren't. Most of them reffer to real, physical things. Words have exactly as much meaning as we choose to give them. The other two are considered "swear" words because saying them may invoke either of them (sympathetic magic if you will). Also consider, both of the latter are readily said from the pulpit. Fornication is in the bible itself, which is just the long-hand word for f--- and where f--- was derrived from.
Secondly, substitute words (crap, dang, darn, etc) all have the same sentiment behind them and are phonetically similar. It's kind of like being in the back seat of the car with your sib, holding your finger an inch away and going "I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you" well, no, technically you're not.. but it's only a technicallity, you're intention and the end result are still the same.
As to rights, well... it makes me really uncomfortable when heterosexuals climb all over each other in public (yes, almost exclusively heterosexuals, gay men and lesbians don't really bother me) I really wish they wouldn't... but no matter how I feel about the situation, well, what am I gonna do? Avert my eyes the best I can. Everyone's going to be offended by something someone else does, that's the down side of free speech... the gayfolk and the Nazi's both get to have rallies. The LDS folks can knock on my door and tell me about Jesus, and I can tell them to @#$% the @#$* @#$! off. :)
Anyway, that's just my take on it, and trying to offer some context which might make swearing less offensive to you. If there is one or two particular people that this really bothers you with, I'd say something, in a polite and concerned tone, like: You know, when you swear that much it negates your natural intellegence and makes it hard for others to take you seriously. When they have some response (which they surely will) you could add that swearing is considered derogetory because it shows a low level of education and class status. If that's not the image they're trying to project that they might want to consider their words more carefully in the future. They may scoff at you initially, but if you give it time, I almost garentee that they will swear less, because every time they do, they'll think of how it sounds, and worry about sounding stupid.