Just Another F*@#%ing Post
Published June 8th, 2007What is profanity? And furthermore, why is it profane? And should it be?
A little post on Slate today asked, “How does a dirty word get that way?” The short answer is, they’re born that way. I know, somewhat anti-climactic. Personally I take a pretty apathetic view towards profanity. Why is “fuck” any more awful than “have sex” or “intercourse” - or why is “shit” any different than “poo” or “defecate”? And since it’s used so ubiquitously - as most profanity ends up getting used - what makes it different than just “stuff”? And “fuck” has become a meaningless word, save for context, in my opinion. Which is interesting in itself.
Words are just words, the way I see it. All that matters is how you use them. And pretty much the only words I think are “bad” are when you’re using them to be derogatory to someone. And even worse when you pick on something they have nothing to do with. If you slur a Jewish person for being Jewish - that’s incredibly wrong and offensive. And it doesn’t really matter what word you use to do it - if you mean to hurt, offend or minimize, then you’ve been profane. If you call someone a cripple meaning to hurt them, because they have one arm or something, that’s wrong. But otherwise - words are just words. The problems comes from the fact that when words are used almost exclusively to hurt, they become bad. And I get that. But they’re still just words, that are meaningless without context. And I would never use words that are strongly associated with hate because of that. But I don’t believe there’s anything inherently bad about them. They’ve just been used poorly, for a long time.
The other way “bad” words are used is to be derogatory to someone based on merit. If you racially slur, that’s based on things outside of everyone’s control. But merit - when someone screws up or makes a mistake or does something wrong, people will say mean things. It doesn’t matter what you say, its why and how you say it. And sometimes, I think, it might be justified. If the person is being hurtful or evil, yeah, they deserve to hear it. But if the person just makes a mistake - there’s no point in calling them stupid. You’ll make a mistake soon too. There’s better ways to handle that situation.
I’m intellectual about this, but I’m still a person and there are words I don’t like - they have a special meaning to me, even if they’re not inherently bad (as I’ve just said). I really, really hate it when someone calls me stupid. Really hate it. Makes me extremely angry. Yeah, I do stupid things - but I didn’t do them because I’m stupid. I did them for a million other reasons. Tell me it was a stupid thing that I did. Explain what I did wrong to me. Show me. Whatever. I can take that. That gives me an opportunity to apologize and fix it or do better in the future. But if you just call me stupid - that’s it. I’m an idiot and I can’t do anything about it. The word is being used to assault me on something that I could not change.
So that’s my profanity discussion. There really aren’t any bad words - just words that have been used badly. Some more than others, some for only bad things. Some are hurtful and offensive because I guess they were born that way and have always been used that way. But absent of context, they’re just letters and sounds.
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me - what a lie. Words do hurt - but it’s not the words themselves, its who is saying it, why and how.
Excellent points….although, now I’m wondering if there was a reason that this post occured today? Is it work-related??