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{"id":528,"date":"2014-04-14T17:33:55","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T22:33:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jenniferfitz\/?p=528"},"modified":"2016-11-11T14:06:08","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T19:06:08","slug":"on-the-use-of-foul-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jenniferfitz\/2014\/04\/on-the-use-of-foul-language\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Use of Foul Language"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\n<\/p>

I don\u2019t go in for the whole \u201cstrong language\u201d defense of everyday profanity.\u00a0 Sam Guzman makes the case for not cussing here<\/a>, and it\u2019s good enough for me.<\/p>\n

My own conversion to the anti-profanity league is more historical than apologetic.\u00a0 I grew up in a non-cussing household, not because we were anything amazing, but because back then most folks did.\u00a0 The occasional strongish word was let loose when tempers flared, but overwhelmingly my parents kept it civilized, and kept us civilized.\u00a0 Certainly there was never any swearing at each other, and none of the really bad words slipped out even in the worst of traffic.<\/p>\n

(On the other hand, a furious \u201cPark it or drive it, Turkey!\u201d was such a staple of my passenger-seat listening that it has become something of a life-motto for me: Quit dithering. Park it or drive it<\/em>.\u00a0 If my dad taught me nothing else about life \u2014 and he did \u2014 that one philosophy has been everything for me, and I\u2019m eternally thankful.)<\/p>\n

As a pagan college student, I got good at swearing.\u00a0 Funny story, though, from freshman Calculus: Our professor was the most clean-cut, peaches-and-cream Catholic lady you ever met.\u00a0 She radiated goodness and light, in addition to being an exceedingly talented instructor.\u00a0 One day I leaned over to grab my pencil, which had dropped on the floor, and my whole desk-chair-ensemble crashed to the floor with me.\u00a0 I let out a giant f-bomb, and then remembered where I was, and before whom I was, and proceeded to apologize profusely \u2014 not for the desk crashing, but for my language.\u00a0 Because I knew with devout conviction that say what you will on your own time, one doesn\u2019t swear in the presence of Mrs. O\u2019Leary.\u00a0 A crashing desk is no excuse.<\/p>\n

I returned to Christianity, and to the Church, thanks to the good works and prayers of a handful of bona fide hidely-ho Evangelicals who could show up Ned Flanders any day of the week.\u00a0 These guys had their act together, and a straight reading of the Bible seemed to underscore the point that if they were mistaken on the Real Presence and the bark of Peter, and had gone overboard in their tee-totaling, they appeared to have gotten the clean-language thing right.\u00a0 Not cussing is the thing Christians do.\u00a0 It\u2019s part of having a shiny, peaceful, forgiving, longsuffering, love-spouting, will-of-God accepting heart.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s my story.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a fair-to-middling article on whether Americans cuss too much, and whether there is too much cussing in movies<\/a>.\u00a0 It\u2019s the piece that got me thinking about this topic today.\u00a0 I don\u2019t usually like to watch shows with a lot of foul language, because I have a brain that is geared towards learning words, and I end up with words stuck in my brain that I don\u2019t want there.<\/p>\n

But the article\u2019s treatment of the movie question reminded me of why I think Funeral Kings<\/em> is such a great film: Because the main character has the potty mouth to end all potty mouths.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s terrible.\u00a0 Every other word is an f-bomb.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what I love. Because that\u2019s what we look like when we cuss: We\u2019re that immature, out-of-control kid, trying to be sophisticated but really we\u2019re not.\u00a0 Not at all.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"