“Oh, that did a lot
of good,” she said.
“What?”
“Honey, you just used
three other words she does not understand.”
“Oh, shit. I didn’t
think about that.”
“Unfortunately ‘shit’
is something she does understand, but I do not want her repeating
it.”
I smiled. “You mean
verbally.”
“Thank you so much
for clarifying that for me.”
Ignoring her sarcastic
tone of voice I said your welcome. I considered the exchange
amusing, whereas my wife was thinking of the social consequences of
using profanity around our children.
The words we know best
are the ones we learn early in life. Profanity is something we pick
up very quickly. The reason for this is that those words are
emphatic and people make a fuss over them. If your father
accidentally hits his thumb with a hammer, he is not going to yell
“Oh, Fudge!” Furthermore, you are going to remember what he did
yell, and you are going to make good use of those words when you stub
your toe. There is nothing like the angelic face of a three year old
shouting “Oh, Fuck!” People are not going blame your three year
old for doing this; they are going to blame you. After all a three
year old does not know what the word means or the rules that
discourage its usage even when a child’s emotions indicate that the
word is appropriate. I can understand a child’s confusion over
this. We encourage our children to learn as much of the language as
possible, but we also reserve the use of certain words for adults.
We trust, perhaps naively, that adults will know when and where the
use of those words is acceptable.
Nobody makes better use
of profanity than the military does. In battle an army always seeks
the high ground. In language it always seeks the low ground. It is
important for everyone to understand what is being said and everyone
understands profanity. Ordinary soldiers will often come up with
their own descriptions for things, and the army is smart enough to
let them do this. Since GI’s call chipped beef on toast “shit on
a shingle” the army is content to use that description regardless
of how unappealing it is. You can also bet that if a mess hall
serving that dish catches on fire some GI will yell: “My God,
they’re using real shingles!”
As I stated in a novel
I wrote about the Civil War, profanity is an emotional prophylactic
that protects a soldier’s mental health. The only person in the
army who messes up is the chaplain; everyone else fucks up. And
there is a whole lot of fucking up taking place. This is
understandable. Whenever you are trying to direct and coordinate the
movements of tens of thousands of people and tons of equipment there
will be problems. The GI’s in WWII described this situation as a
SNAFU (situation normal, all fucked up). One might think that snafu
should be followed by an exclamation mark, but this is not the case
in regard to its normal usage. Rather than being an exclamation of
disgust snafu is simply an acknowledgment of the fact that things are
going to be fucked up and you have to deal with it. Another
expression from WWII I like describes a messy situation that offers
no good options: “We’re up shit creek without a paddle.” War
is dirty work by its very nature, and GI’s frequently find
themselves up shit creek.
In civilian life we are
expected to be more polite than soldiers are. Profane words are
considered crude and using them in public is considered
disrespectful. The people I train at work rarely fuck up because in
the civilian world fucking up means creating a problem that is much
greater than what WWII GI’s would call a snafu.
In closing I wish all
of my civilian readers a good day and all my readers serving in the
military a good fucking day. I think I speak for everyone when I say
we are looking forward to the end of our military engagements and the
safe return of you brave men and women who are serving us so well.
First published in macsbackporch.fictionforall.com on Jun. 7, 2011
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