Potty mouth

May 23, 2006 at 2:07 am (Uncategorized)

I want to tell you a goddamn story and I'll try to keep the sonofabitch short. I know I can be a wordy bastard sometimes and I'm trying to knock that shit off.

A few weeks ago, I met with a group of senior citizens to talk about my novel. The group was made up of a dozen older women and at the end of the meeting, one of them pursed her lips together and asked the question I knew would be coming.

"Why, Mr. LaFlamme, do you have so much swearing in your story?"

Tensing, I expected grumbles of agreement from the others in the group. Soon it would turn ugly. Perhaps a beating would commence and how the hell would I explain that at the end of the day?

Instead, to my surprise, the other ladies quickly derided the first for her observation. There was nothing wrong with a little spicy language in a work of fiction, they said. Gutter talk is just the way of the world and those who find it offensive just aren't being realistic.

"We've all heard the F-word, Mabel," one of them said.

I am not making that quote up. And because of those broadminded broads, I am here today to talk about swearing and how much I enjoy it.

Oh, sure. I could just spout off a bunch of profanity statistics. Like how in the United States, 72 percent of men and 58 percent of women swear in public. And how the same is true for 74 percent of 18 to 34 year olds and 48 percent of people who are over age 55.

Or I could go the scientific route and explain how man's tendency for vulgarity is largely a product of his limbic system, which houses memory and emotion, and the basal ganglia, which is ground control for impulse control. There is also the matter of deistic profanity versus visceral vulgarity.

But the hell with all that crap. I know most of you get pissed off by blowhards who retreat to textbooks to deliver their message. Who fucking needs it? So, in order to keep you all from bitching, I'll just proceed to the main point. Which is what Mainetarr and I refer to as the hierarchy of swear words. It is a simple measure of any given word's severity.

For instance, the word bastard would be low on the profanity meter. Bastard is a word used chiefly in reference to someone who is being a pain in the ass. Unless he or she is also grouchy, in which case you use the more fitting term "miserable bastard." 

Likewise, sonofabitch (note how it rolls off the tongue if you wrap it all into one word that way) is a perfectly acceptable word to use in public to describe one who, like a bastard, is being a pain in the ass. Only, a sonofabitch tends to cause you grief intentionally, as in: "that sonofabitch just took a piss in my bird feeder again."

Barking the word asshole brings it up a notch. That word implies that, like a bastard or a sonofabitch, a particular person is causing you misery. Only now, your level or irritation has risen to the point where you'd like to do bodily harm to the person who made you swear in the first place.

The word douchebag, while technically a medical product and not a swear word, is typically used to describe a person who is an asshole, but who is probably too stupid to know better. A douchebag, while annoying, is almost a sympathetic character.

A fucker is a person who has antagonized you, but you really can't hold it against him because somehow, it's his job. "That fucker drank the last beer again," you might say about your lush of a roomate. Only, be careful of words like this. As Mainetarr brilliantly observed, add one adjective to it, and you will change the meaning altogether. Saying "he's a dirty fucker" no longer implies mild irritation. Now, the noun "fucker" has been modified to imply that a person is so stinky, it is no longer just unpleasant, but possibly unhealthy, as well.

And so on, and so forth. There are great swear words that roll out of the throat like nails fired from the thorax. Some are reserved for moments of extreme unhappiness, like when you sit on a bag of tacks (it happens, people). There are words that will get your face slapped and others that will cause an entire room to fall silent. We all know there is one word so vile and syllabic, it is best not even hinted at.

I welcome your thoughts on the hierarchy of swear words and their many uses. Extra credit is given for those words that sound dirty, but are in fact, perfectly clean. Like fucoid. Or cumquat. Or seamen. Or masticate. Extra, extra points are given if you can use those words in a sentence without giggling.

PS: not to mention "cockchafer, "snatch block," or "touch hole."