The F Word

Parker: Is "dudes" a bad word?
Anya: No, "dudes" is fine.
Parker: What about "fuck?"
Anya: Yes... Yes that is...

Turns out people were right and kids actually do soak up bad words like a fucking sponge.

I've always had a really conflicted attitude about cussing. Anytime there's an issue in which the value of something is based on society's judgment of said issue, I get a little angsty. Yes, I know all the arguments about cussing. "Cussing is what a lazy person does when they can't think of... ummm... recall(?) vocabulary words to use instead." It's kind a punk rock, rebellious detour your brain takes. Yeah you could say "What you did displeases me," or you could drop a "Fuck you, asshole" and get to the heart of the matter. Why be precise when you've got verbal napalm at your disposal?

Anya and I joke often about people who say "fuckin'" in place of "ummm" (or just plain old dead silence--how novel) when they're thinking of what else to say. So instead of "Let's...uhhh... go to the ... uhhh...(as their brain processes what they were going to say before they got distracted by SQUIRREL!!!!) store," it's "Let's...fuckinnnnn'.... go to the ... fuckinnnnn' store." It's as if the last syllable "n" is the new "uhhhh." This is the opposite of above. This isn't your brain's mini-rebellion taking over. In this instance, the "F" word has lost nearly all punch and is a bit of a flat tire. Whereas the example in the paragraph above is Iggy Pop on stage cutting himself up, this is more like hearing Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" used to sell Carnival cruises. Completely meaningless and devoid of gut punching qualities.


My dad used to really get on me for cussing when I was a kid. I remember one time a friend called me up and I didn't get to the phone in time. It went straight to our answering machine (remember those things? -- they had actual tape in them --file this in the "things our kids will never even know existed" bin). I picked up the phone not knowing that it had gone to voicemail and proceeded to fill up an entire tape's worth of me discussing this or that, probably about my brother, using every kind of cuss word known to man.


My dad was rightly pissed off when he got home and he really let me have it. But the thing that always bugged me about that whole situation was that I learned most of the "bad" language I heard from him. It's just something that he did. During a Cowboys game... During an Astros game... while driving. He didn't curse a lot, but he was like a great artist when he would. When he'd get pissed at something, it was like watching a Mamet play. You could even prepare yourself for it. The second you saw his teeth clench you knew it was time to get the popcorn. "This is going to be goooooood."

When he finally got to it, my dad made a good point which has stuck with me ever since; first off, to never, ever do it in certain social settings like church, business meetings, classroom settings, etc. And secondly, that you probably shouldn't do it at all, but that if you do, be aware that people around you will view you in a certain light because of it. All good points, yes. But I don't know that I ever looked down on my dad for anything that he's said or done during those moments. It just became something he did.

But then again, part of this is just a maturity issue. Despite it all, cussing is easy. It's by far the easiest road to take sometimes. But just because it's the easy road doesn't mean it's the right road to take. Everything I said above remains valid and sometimes it's good to let the verbal knife come out and get to it, but I think it's the unnecessary cussing that's the worst kind to do. Like did I really need to curse because I stepped on one of Parker's Lego blocks? Sometimes pain is pain and you gotta do what you gotta do, but sometimes you just gotta take a step back and evaluate whether what you're saying is really what you want to be saying. Is letting a "dammit" slip really going to get my dollar unstuck from the Coke machine?

Perhaps my dad's somewhere laughing at me now because this shit's come full circle. I try to carry myself a certain way and although cursing is not a big deal to me, I don't want someone to think negatively of me because they see me doing so, so when I'm not being a jackass in posts like this, I try to avoid doing it. But I hate that Parker's heard me saying stuff like that and that we're now having to do the curse word detox. I guess there's always time to set things right. I'll add it to the list...