My Dad was at least semi-professional in cursing, but my Mom always gave him such grief for it that I avoided the whole issue. Even in college I never used a lot of profanity. Now, after 18 years of computer programming, my vocabulary is quite extensive, even if it is not truly possible for a collection of bytes or silicon to do or be some of the things I call them on occasion. As for kid stories, I’ve got two, neither of them about me.
When my son was about eight, we let him see Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me; hey, we figured the double entendre would go over his head, which it did. True, we were a little uncomfortable with Fat Bastard, but other than enjoying the bathroom humor my son didn’t seem to notice anything about the name. The next day, he says “Dad, you know in the movie when Fat Bastard…” I interrupt, and tell him that that is not a nice word, and he shouldn’t use it. He thinks for a minute, and says “Dad, you know in the movie when Big Bastard…”
My wife is the eldest of six siblings, and tells the story of coming home from school to find her youngest sister (around 5 years old at the time) playing with her Weebles house. The Weebles car pulls up to the house, and the Weebles Dad gets out and goes into the Weebles living room, at which point Youngest Sister says “Karen, put on your goddamned shoes!”
I don’t swear much, because I’d rather have it have impact when I do – I use those words only when I really mean it. Growing up, swearing was a big no-no, and I didn’t want to do it badly enough to get in trouble for it, so I just didn’t.
Apparently, though, I came home from my first day of kindergarten and used a new word I’d just learned that day – I called my little brother a shithead. I obviously didn’t know what it meant, but my mom – while trying not to laugh – explained to me that that was not an appropriate word, and that I shouldn’t say it again. To me, the weirdest thing about this story is that I never heard it until I was in college! In my family, that’s just bizarre – they should have been teasing me about it since I was 13 or so.
I’d rate my vocabulary at about an 8.75. When I was younger, I never used to swear, but now I don’t have a problem with it. (17 year old female). I have a younger brother who’s ten. I don’t encourage him to swear, but I allow him to do it in front of me if he wants. (Nothing too horrible. Just damn, shit, things like that).
I still remember how I found out what the word “cnt" meant. We were on a family vacation in North Carolina. I was maybe thirteen. I knew just about every cursword, but somehow the c-word had just slipped through the cracks. Anyway, my two cousins and I were in a bathroom at a reststop. Someone, a long time ago, had scratched "Sheryl–Cnt” into a stall door. It was hard to make out, so I read it alloud, thinking that was the girl’s last name. My cousins were at first shocked cos I’d said what I’d said when I was so young, then they realized I didn’t know what it meant. Then they made fun of me that entire night.
I did that exact same thing, only with “nigger.” It sounded like something you would say when you were trying to lift something very heavy, which is what I was pretending to do at the time. “Ugh! Urgh! Nigger!” My mom was horrified, and it was only the two of us at the time.
I was raised by very strict parents who did not swear unless it was damn. We were not allowed to say it though.
I was in 5th grade and My friend Marion and I were walking home and saw the word fuck as we did everyday on this wall. I asked her what it meant she said I don’t know? So we asked this boy and he told us to go home and ask our parents. So I walk in my house and ask my Mother what does fuck mean? I never saw the back hand coming but she hit me square in the mouth. Then I was dragged in the bathroom and had a bar of ivory soap shoved in my mouth. I was then sent to my room until my father got home. He came up to my room and his ears were bright red so I knew it was going to be bad. He said, why did you ask your mother what that obsene word was? I said Marion and I saw it walking home from school and we asked a kid what it meant and he told us to go home and ask our parents. My Dad just busted out laughing. He laughed so hard he was doubled over and I began to laugh at my Dad and my Mom comes in the room and says Ben what is going on here? So my Dad tells my Mom what I said and she starts laughing. I never did find out what it meant for a while and my folks forbid me to say it. Ya gotta love the sweep it under the rug 60’s.
Interesting you would ask this. I always imagined (up to age 16 or so) that cuss words were of very recent vintage:
Wikipedia: “Johnny Naldo, of Trenton, NJ, coined the word “fuck” in 1957 (I was born in 1962) when he was age 13. Use of the word quickly spread across the country, reaching California in 1966.”
That they typically were much older (often MUCH older) than that was a complete shock to me, as I couldn’t possibly imagine that it was the adults who were the prime disseminators of such words: like what kind of adult would stoop so low, and what self-respecting kid would use adult cuss words, and not make up ones of his own. Well, about this time my dad got older and no longer felt inhibited enough around me to not unleash profanity over whatever provocation (usually shanked golf shots on the golf course).
Well, the internet has managed to allow new jargon to spread across the world very easily, in a way not possible before, tho typically it isn’t necessarily obscene or profane per se.
Not so long ago, people had more respect for each other. People avoided such talk, and I can see how ugly it sounds when people use it in casual conversation. It sounds so ignorant. Before that era, would you believe “hell” was a bad word?
Zeldar, you’ve been around long enough to know better than this. If you want to discuss a topic from a thread this old, start a new thread and link back to the zombie.
