Road Apples by Tim Sanders
Aug. 26, 2013

Bad Words

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I grew up in a family where cursing was not allowed. My mother didn't curse, and my father didn't curse, either. I was an only child, so unlike some of my friends, who learned how to curse at an early age because they had the advantage of being raised in large families, I had to work at learning to curse. Where it came naturally to some of my friends, I had to go off by myself and practice cursing. You know, using the proper inflection, and gesturing appropriately. I suppose I could have spent my time more productively by learning French, but I didn't admire the way the French language sounded. A man who spoke French sounded like a Frenchman, even when he cursed. “Mon Dieu?” Big deal! But a man who could curse in English was a man's man.

When I say my dad didn't ever curse, that is not exactly true. Dad was a minister, but he also had a degree in engineering, and loved building things. Once, when my Aunt Betty was coming from Indiana to stay with us for a week or two, my mom was busy realigning the furniture while my dad was outside building a four-wheeled drive tractor with a hydraulic loader on the rear. That had nothing to do with my aunt's visit. She was a very thin woman, and did not require a hydraulic rear end loader, but Dad was still preoccupied with his project. And he was not happy when my friend Jeff and I, who were helping Mom inside by using my old four poster bed as a trampoline, broke the bed frame. That was the bed that Aunt Betty was going to use, and we were testing it for durability. When Dad saw the damage, and realized that repairing that old bed would take him away from his tractor, he actually said–and I can still hear that word echoing down through the empty corridors of my mind–“DAMN!” It was the only time I ever heard a bad word come out of my dad's mouth, and it was very effective. I was convinced the clouds would split and lightning would strike me dead as a nail. It didn't, and later I wondered if Dad had practiced that word out behind the barn when he was a child.

In school, cursing was tricky. I once stumbled across a quote by editor Perry White in a Superman comic, where he said “GREAT CAESAR'S GHOST!” He said that a lot, and I was eager to try it out. So I used it in response to my 5th grade teacher's question, which had something to do with an insignificant wad of chewing gum and a chair. I replied “Gum on your chair? Great Caesar's ghost!” or something to that effect. And although she had nothing other than hearsay evidence about the gum incident, she still sent me to the principal's office. For cursing.

And in those days, if a teacher needed some help, there were always those little girls–the ones with ears like bats–who fluttered around waiting for some poor boy who was sitting at his desk, minding his own business, to start practicing his cursing. It usually went something like this:


BRENDA: I'm gonna tell!

DONNIE: Tell what?

BRENDA: What you said! Miss Hofnagle, after you returned Donnie's paper, he said a bad word!

MISS HOFNAGLE: You know we don't tattle in class ... but since you brought it up, what did he say, Brenda?

BRENDA: He said the “B” word, and then he said the “S” word.

DONNIE: I DID NOT!

MISS HOFNAGLE: Are you sure you didn't say that, Donald? Be honest, now.

DONNIE: I didn't say “bull” in front of the “S” word, I said “horse sh–”

MISS HOFNAGLE: DONALD LIPSCHITZ, that will be enough. You march yourself right down to Principal Sneedle's office!


Little girls were experts at initializing bad words. There were “A” words and “B” words, and while it was not always clear exactly which “A” or “B” word was being discussed, there was little question about the “S”, “H”, “G” and “D” words. And there was always the big bugaboo, the “F” word, which some girls preferred to call “the letter between E and G” word. They knew the words, and knew their meanings, but they wouldn't learn to say them until they grew up, got married, and discovered that husbands were, basically, slovenly pigs who were incapable of picking up their dirty socks or hitting the commode.

But all of that was back in the Neolithic era, and now what used to be bad words are part of the everyday lexicon. Little girls can turn the TV to dozens of channels and hear the “G” word and the “D” word and just hundreds of “F” words, until their little ears turn blue. And preacher's kids don't have to sneak off and practice cursing, either. They can take lessons on the Internet. Those previously banned words are as commonplace as reality shows and baseball players on steroids, now. But don't worry, there is a whole new class of bad words out there.

Not long ago, several news articles discussed the internal memo sent to Seattle city employees instructing them to avoid using words such as “citizen” and “brown bag.” Those words were offensive, apparently, to people who weren't exactly citizens, in the legal, documented sense, and to people who could not afford brown bags. So eventually, I suppose, internal Seattle correspondence will contain only “C-words” and “B B-words.”
And in March of 2012, New York City's Department of Education announced that words like “birthdays,” “dinosaurs,” and “Halloween” should be avoided on city-issued tests because, as the New York Post put it, “they could evoke 'unpleasant emotions among the students.'” Instead, those test questions should read.


On “H-word” holiday, which was also Jimmy's “B-word” celebration, he dressed up as Barney, the purple “D-word,” but the eye holes didn't line up, and he was hit by a U-Haul “T-word” which “I-worded” his spleen while he was crossing the “S-word.” Q: If Jimmy's middle name was Norton, how many initials did Jimmy have? (Extra credit: If “Norton” becomes another “N-word,” will newscasters be allowed to use it?”)


This is what happens when we put sensitivity trainers in charge of the language. Makes you wanna cuss, don't it?