Archive for the 'Garbage' Category

I’d been discussing this topic with people I know recently, so I thought I’d try to write down my thoughts on the subject.

Probably a little more than 5 years ago, Joe Rogan, the host of Fear Factor, made a comment during a talk show on which he was a guest that said something along the lines that there should be no such thing as bad words. He is absolutely right. The trouble is this could easily be seen from two perspectives: existing bad words should never have been introduced into our language, or these words should never have been labeled as bad.

The only reason for bringing up the first, faulty perspective, is that I used to think exactly that when I was younger. And judging from Joe Rogan’s career, shows that he’s been in, and the language used in both, it seems a lot more than “more likely” that he was implying the second perspective. It is important to be polite to others; and I must confess that I sometimes, hopefully not too often, seem to have no “tact filter” (sorry). That said, I say it is a faulty perspective, because the sounds forming these words don’t have some magical property that makes them bad, evil, or inappropriate for kids — somebody has just decided to arbitrarily label them as such. There is definitely, however, bad meaning.

There was an article published in 1983 in the Ensign (an LDS magazine) that said: “Bathroom and sexual obscenities can now be heard in certain [places] that would have been unthinkable five years ago.”¹ I will conceded that it is tactless to discuss what goes on in the bathroom or the bedroom in public; but that doesn’t make any particular word any worse than words not regarded as profane: e.g. “poop”, “sex”, “vagina”. Even the most common bad words, when by themselves, only describe body functions, parts, or effects of.

To give an example or two, telling someone “screw you” is just as bad as “f*#% you”; or to rephrase, telling someone “f*#% you” is no worse than “screw you”. They are both disrespectful, but again, no worse or better than the other. Though for some strange reason, “screw” can be used in a PG movie, while the “f” word guarantees a PG-13 rating (or an R if used 4 or more times). Also, if I say I need to take a “s*#%,” it is no worse than saying, “Man, I have really got to poo.” I won’t argue that none of these are tactless; but I did say that I can sometimes have a bit of trouble with my tact filter (though, it’s actually more of a lack of a TMI filter, to be more specific — my language is usually “clean” by society’s standards).

A very common argument in “favor” of keeping bad words is that their use brings up negative thoughts that are not in line with ones’ religious beliefs, or that they cause emotional harm to others that have to hear them. But I must ask, can you think of a word that, by itself, is actually offensive to you personally, and also come up with an actual explanation of why that word is any worse than its equivalent; or is it that you are simply offended because you’ve been trained (aka programmed, brainwashed) to instinctively react that way to a particular laundry-list of words?

Now, there are arguably exceptions, though it could easily still be argued that it is the way the language is used, and not the actual words themselves:

Most, if not all, religions regard the name of their god as sacred (and also often the pronouns by which s/he is addressed). Using your or others’ gods’ names in a disrespectful manner is much worse than any form of profanity; and the use of that language should be given a PG-13 or R rating much more quickly than any other form of profanity, and yet there are PG movies that use that use that type of language more than 100 times.

The largest exception that I could come up with, and the only reason to avoid using words labeled as bad, is simply because others are offended by their use (even if the offense is artificial). So while I try to be polite to others, I have chosen not be offended by any particular word, and hope to teach my children to do the same. I make the point that avoiding their use is not the same thing as being offended by their use, because of what I have to say next.

To actually label specific words as bad, simply for the sake of the word itself, is completely pretentious. From the same Ensign article: “Obscenity, the open use of which used to be a mark of lower social strata, has somehow become acceptable in everyday conversation for everyday people.”¹ I’m sorry, could you repeat that?! “Used to be a mark of lower social strata?” So we shouldn’t use particular words simply because they were once used by the lower class? Well fiddlesticks, we better clean up our language, because we don’t want to sound like lower class peasants working in the fields or beggars on the streets. But seriously, it really is pretentious to think that we shouldn’t use certain words, just because they were used by someone else “that is not as good as you.” It is interesting that the word “vulgar” used to be defined as “of the common people” (see the word history listed on this) page.

I’m not intentionally trying to argue with religious leaders, I just feel that sometimes the majority of people “favoring” profanity are focusing on small, unimportant details rather than the bigger picture (think about ancient Jews and their detailed, excessive lists of things you couldn’t do on the Sabbath, when the law is simply to keep the Sabbath holy; I don’t plan to discuss this particular topic, it is way beyond the scope of this essay). I have too often heard people around me say things like, “that was a really good movie, but the language was horrible.” When I hear comments like that, it annoys me so much I want to “smoosh [their] face” (kudos to whomever names where I got that quote).

It is doubtful that most of you are actually being pretentious and instead truly believe there are bad words, because that’s just what you’ve been taught. Hopefully, though, I can get people to understand (or even agree with) the whole point of this essay –

there are no bad words, and it is infinitely more important that you watch what you mean than the words you actually use to say it.