Watching the Language We Use

I have not given up trying to get my book, The Split Second:  In Consideration of Others or Look Up from the Phone and How to Deal with Rudeness in Others published, but I draw on much inner faith. Thank you to you folks who have been supportive. I know these posts are long and more like newspaper or magazine articles. The only thing I can respond to about that is, oh, well.

I want to write about language usage in our society, or rather, profane language in our society. I am no angel when it comes to using foul language by any means. What I try to do is use the questionable words in places and times when I know my delivery will not be met with shock or uncomfortable reactions. As a classroom teacher for 37 years, I knew that using such words would never be acceptable in the classroom. In 1981 during my first semester of teaching, I kept ten students after class to discuss their behavior. I used the term “a**hole behavior” not calling any student that dubious word. The next day, I was called into the Principal’s Office and told that a parent had called about my language. I would call a slight reprimand, but I deserved it and that action taught me much even though the principal went on to use several profane words himself. Today, I laugh at that exchange although at the time I felt extremely humbled.

This morning, I went to a restaurant in a genuinely nice community. Three gentlemen who were pleasant people seated close to me were all very loud and profane with their language. Fortunately, no small children were close to them, but I had to wonder why they had to pepper their conversation with “F***,” or F***in” or “Sh**.” Again, I am not a pillar of virtue and I tell folks that would be no fun; however, I would think first about what words to use in a public place such as this restaurant. In my later years of teaching, the local Macy’s Department Store was visible from my classroom windows. When I heard students using profanity non-stop, I would comment that “if you started working there at Macy’s, let’s say behind the jewelry counter, and an elderly customer who had been shopping there experienced your constant profanity, you would not be keeping your job very long.”

Also, I comment here that a few years ago, I had a good friend in my car with me as we returned from a restaurant. Her granddaughter was in the back seat. My friend was reciting the F-bomb continually, and I was (and still am when I think of it) shocked that a grandmother would do this for her grandmother to hear.

I am concerned that my words here may be confused with the current concept of Cancel Culture and of what both “sides of the political aisle” accuse the other one: censorship. I was a history/government teacher who encouraged students to form their own opinions of political issues and life in general. What I am trying to state here is that I wish folks thought first how to express that and that expression need not always be laced with profanity.