The Politics of Potty Mouth
Now, it seems the federal court and the FCC are scrambling a bit to keep up with the ever evolving landscape of curse words. One of the arguments is that the word “fuck” is used more to express frustration than sexual obscenity these days. But the real challenge for the FCC is the examples for this argument.
At this point, even our president and vice president will use it casually in its nonsexual sense. In March 2002, Bush interrupted a meeting Condoleezza Rice was holding and yelled, “Fuck Saddam. We’re taking him out!” And Dick Cheney famously said “Go fuck yourself” to Patrick Leahy on the floor of the Senate.” ~ “How Does a Dirty Word Get That Way?”
It brings a new meaning to presidential address. Now don’t get me wrong, regardless of your opinion of the people in question and the office they are holding – if I was president or vice-president, I would be cussing up a storm, too, 24/7/360. As a parent what am I supposed to do now when I catch one of my kids swearing, “Now Junior, I don’t want you going around swearing like a President.” Here is some interesting historical information on the f-word;
The obscenity fuck is a very old word and has been considered shocking from the first, though it is seen in print much more often now than in the past. Its first known occurrence, in code because of its unacceptability, is in a poem composed in a mixture of Latin and English sometime before 1500. The poem, which satirizes the Carmelite friars of Cambridge, England, takes its title, “Flen flyys,” from the first words of its opening line, “Flen, flyys, and freris,” that is, “fleas, flies, and friars.” The line that contains fuck reads “Non sunt in coeli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk.” The Latin words “Non sunt in coeli, quia,” mean “they [the friars] are not in heaven, since.” The code “gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk” is easily broken by simply substituting the preceding letter in the alphabet, keeping in mind differences in the alphabet and in spelling between then and now: i was then used for both i and j; v was used for both u and v; and vv was used for w. This yields “fvccant [a fake Latin form] vvivys of heli.” The whole thus reads in translation: “They are not in heaven because they fuck wives of Ely [a town near Cambridge].” ~ Dictionary.Com
Now that’s one nasty poem, even by today’s standards.
This is an interesting subject to stew on as a dad. As a boy growing up, swearing is a rite of passage. The swearing I did as a youngster was steeped in “vulgarity” rather than being “offensive.” Shit being a classic example; it is not really offensive but is definitely vulgar. My friends and I took a reductionist approach to swearing, meaning, my friends and I could say pretty much anything we needed to say using entirely curse words. Case-in-point; “Dude, my bike is broken,” becomes, “Fuck, the fuckin’ fucker’s fucked.” Poetry, pure poetry, my friend. Actually, it sounds more like dialog pulled straight from HBO’s, “Deadwood.” Though this is nothing new; I will venture to say that kids across the world do this; so do grown-ups. The proof is in the dictionary. There are a dozen and a half definitions for the word shit – the word is a veritable swiss army knife, for shit’s sake.
I think the underlying point is that we canonize a curse-word by forbidding it or shaming it. It is clear to me that the general etymology of curse-words are rooted in blasphemy based on the day’s current moral thermometer. We know this because the curse-words of yesterday aren’t necessarily the curse-words of today.
Back in Shakespeare’s day, when one’s lineage mattered a lot more, the word bastard was so offensive it was often written “b-d.” Contemporary readers might not recognize the power of a line like this one, spoken by Capt. MacMorris in Act III of Henry V: “What about my nation? Is my nation a villain, and a bastard, and a knave, and a rascal?” ~ “How Does a Dirty Word Get That Way?
At what point has a curse-word lost its venom? If the FCC changes its stance on certain curse-words are we going to hear a lot less *beeps* and a lot more shit? And more importantly, do you the parent really give a shit, anyway?
Related Links;
Slate | How Does a Dirty Word Get That Way?
Slate | When Do Papers Print the F-word
Washington Post | Cheney Dismisses Critic With Obscenity
New York Times | Court Rebuffs F.C.C. on Fines for Indecency
