{"id":28196,"date":"2011-05-13T20:31:45","date_gmt":"2011-05-13T20:31:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/theanchoress\/?p=28196"},"modified":"2017-03-06T22:40:08","modified_gmt":"2017-03-06T22:40:08","slug":"the-vulgar-tongue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2011\/05\/13\/the-vulgar-tongue\/","title":{"rendered":"The Vulgar Tongue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The editors of America Magazine<\/i> have slipped on their shoulder pads and sharpened up their cleats in order to tackle runaway vulgarity among our youngsters:<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The veteran Catholic editor A. E. P. (Ed) Wall begins his Easter message: \u201cJesus Christ, whose name is heard in careless expletives by the vocabulary-challenged in TV and film, we know you as Eternal.\u201d He\u2019s on to something.<\/p>\n

The status of a language determines the status of a culture. And contemporary culture seems less capable of dealing with what words like Jesus Christ and God really mean. In the old catechesis Catholics categorized bad language as vulgar (\u201cHell,\u201d \u201cdamn\u201d and bathroom expletives), profane (\u201cGod damn it!\u201d) and obscene (the F word, etc.). But now we can hear \u201cJesus Christ\u201d on television talk shows\u2014\u201cJesus, Christ, I was so drunk that night that\u2026\u201d\u2014or on subway cars\u2014\u201cJesus Christ, who does he think he is?\u201d<\/p>\n

And \u201cO my God!\u201d has been twittered down to \u201cOMG,\u201d which simply signals astonishment, indignation or ridicule. Words that traditionally have reached out in prayer\u2014\u201cO my God, save me from this situation\u201d\u2014are trivialized to express passing annoyance: \u201cOMG, my hair is a mess.\u201d<\/p>\n

What can be done? Not much, formally. It would not help for the bishops in concert to condemn vulgarity, profanity or even obscenity, as if all expletives were sinful. God is not hurt. But we are. When we diminish the full meaning of sacred words, we diminish ourselves and cut ourselves off from our meanings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

General George S. Patton once said that no man deserved to call himself a gentleman unless he could swear for thee minutes without repeating himself. (If that be true, then I qualify as a Landgraf<\/i> and Elector of the Holy Roman Empire.) But meeting the general\u2019s standards requires requires a certain virtuosity. A person would have to choose and cull his cusswords with a jeweler\u2019s eye.<\/p>\n

If Patton heard the kind of dull, repetitive swearing that so vexes the editors\u2019 ears, some kid would end up slapped, if not shot with an ivory-handled pistol. Any word repeated by rote, with no thought given to its meaning or the context, marks the speaker as a dolt. That goes for swear words, for Our Lord\u2019s name, and especially for academic and corporate loanwords like \u201cdichotomy,\u201d and \u201cparadigm.\u201d He who indulges sounds no more sophisticated than my great-grandmother \u2014 born in the last year of Queen Victoria\u2019s reign \u2014 who began, maintained and ended conversations by clicking her tongue in her cheek and mumbling, \u201cWell, for heaven\u2019s sake.\u201d<\/p>\n

I charge myself with overusing foreign words. Last Sunday, I managed to mar a 1,400-word tribute to my mother by referring both to her sang-froid,<\/i> and to her principled rejection of the grand monde.<\/i> Why I did this, I don\u2019t know \u2014 it\u2019s not like I speak too little English to say she was unflappable and hated yuppies. No, I probably wanted to sound like some late-19th century poet with an absinthe problem and a weirdly colored carnation in his lapel. (Note: I didn\u2019t say d\u00e9cadent,<\/i> or refer to the fin de si\u00e8cle;<\/i> I\u2019m getting better.)<\/p>\n

Anyone wanting to spice up his language in a way that would agree with the prissiest comment filter should consult The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.<\/i><\/strong><\/a> It promises \u201cbuckish slang,\u201d \u201cpickpocket wit\u201d and \u201cuniversity eloquence\u201d \u2014 all of which would be quite intelligible to the Founding Fathers, Beau Brummell, or Sir Edmund Blackadder. Best of all, none, if any, of the constituent idioms would give any offense today; indeed, editors bowdlerized anything that contemporaries would have considered beyond the pale.<\/p>\n

A sampler platter:<\/p>\n

Bartholomew Baby: <\/strong>A person dressed up in a tawdry manner, like the dolls or babies sold at Bartholomew fair.<\/p>\n

Blue devils:<\/strong> low spirits.<\/p>\n

Blanket hornpipe: <\/strong>The amorous congress.<\/p>\n


\nDog in a doublet:<\/strong> A daring, resolute fellow.<\/p>\n

Herring-gutted: <\/strong>Thin, as a shotten herring.<\/p>\n

Nose gent: <\/strong>A nun.<\/p>\n

Thornback: <\/strong>An old maid.<\/p>\n

Vicar of Bray:<\/strong> One who changes his principles, always siding with the stronger party.<\/p>\n

Brim <\/strong>(Abbreviation for Brimstone): An abandoned woman; perhaps originally only a passionate or irascible woman, compared to brimstone for its volatility.<\/p>\n

Brisket Beater: <\/strong>A Roman Catholic. See Breast Fleet and Craw Thumper.<\/p>\n

Word of Mouth: <\/strong>To drink by word of mouth, i.e., out of the bowl or bottle instead of a glass.<\/p>\n

Foreman of the Jury:<\/strong> One who engrosses all the talk to himself, or who speaks for the rest of the company.<\/p>\n

Prattling box: <\/strong>A pulpit.<\/p>\n

People don\u2019t seem to have gotten any more or less imaginative since those days. \u201cKings\u2019 pictures\u201d meant \u201ccoins\u201d \u2014 a perfect analog to \u201cdead presidents.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The editors of America Magazine have slipped on their shoulder pads and sharpened up their cleats in order to tackle runaway vulgarity among our youngsters: The veteran Catholic editor A. E. P. (Ed) Wall begins his Easter message: \u201cJesus Christ, whose name is heard in careless expletives by the vocabulary-challenged in TV and film, we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[329,511],"class_list":["post-28196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-children","tag-popular-culture"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Vulgar Tongue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The editors of America Magazine have slipped on their shoulder pads and sharpened up their cleats in order to tackle runaway vulgarity among our\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2011\/05\/13\/the-vulgar-tongue\/\" \/>\n<meta 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