BTW, the very next day after that Christmas Eve dinner, my cousin The Infamous Racist Skank I mentioned previously and I were at the family Xmas gathering with our cousin, Amanda, and were teaching her to swear.
“Amanda? Can you say shit? Say shit Amanda!” “Sit!”
“Say fuck you, Amanda?” “Fuck oo.”
Yes, we were really bad.
I also did the “f” instead of “tr” trick as a child.
The daughter of a friend also did this, and grandma tried to teach her to call trucks a “pick-up” instead.
So the child started calling them a pick-up… f*ck.
When I was a little kid, I saw two rednecks in a hardware store arguing, and one of them said to the other, “I’m gonna fuck you up!” So later in the checkout line, I look up at this woman and guess what I said… I have no recollection of this, but I was like two…
I’ll never forget an Easter maybe five years ago, we were having an Easter egg hunt, and I found one before my younger sister. (I think I was 11 or 12 and she was 4 or 5). And she says as loudly as she can “Oh shit!” The look on my mom’s face was priceless.
Now my older sister and I are accidentally teaching my younger sister to swear. We tell her never to say anything that we say around her, but what do you expect from a nine-year-old? She some times asks people what “fuzznuts” are. I really wonder where she got that one from.
My mom told me this one about me: she and my grandmother used to take me out for shopping and lunch a lot when I was a wee tot. I was generall well-behaved (she says!).
However, one afternoon when I was maybe 3 or 4 we were in the cafe section of some department store, and I wanted mustard for my hotdog. The waitress went off to get it. Apparently, I thought she was taking too long, because I asked Mom and Grandma, “Where did she go for that goddamned mustard?”
The waitress was, of course, right behind me.
That only works for one part of the problem: intentional profanity. The unintentional stuff, on the other hand…
Like many two-year-olds, totnak can’t quite get his r’s right. So he eats with a fuck and spoon. And he likes wearing T-shits. The only thing we can do is to say it correctly and try not to grin… and wait until he gets it right.
Having a bilingual household adds another level of challenge. “Skitt!” is a Norwegian expression of frustration or disgust. It’s mild enough that you could say it in front of your grandma if she happened to be a Norskie. But it sounds exactly like “Shit!” in English. I have to remind fella bilong missus flodnak not to use it in front of the kids. So he says the next thing that comes to mind instead, and the result is that we have a toddler who likes to yell UFF DA! But at least he won’t shock his American relations…
My my cousin was 2 he could not pronounce Kentucky Fried Chicken. He called it Funfucky Fried Kitchen.
Another little cousin was riding in the car when her mother lit up a cigarette. “Mommy, why you fuck?” She asked, “You shouldn’t fuck. Fucking is bad, mommy.”
To this day we in our family like to tease my aunt Mary by asking her “Why you fuck?”