My Language

Against my better judgment, I promised my mother that I wouldn’t swear on this website.

I can no longer hold myself to that standard.

Who among us actually believes that an arbitrarily established list of words should be excluded from our language in order to prove that we are upstanding members of society?

I would love to hear your argument.

The very notion of profanity is a foul mechanism used by the religious tradition to separate us into classes.

It’s a game in which we only tell half of the players the rules, so that we can know us from them.

This is simply proof that religious tradition is not here to save our souls, it is here to move us into a higher class.

Rich people say proper things like “indubitably, indeed” and poor people say “hell yeah, fuck yes”.

And we say that one is delightful and the other deplorable.

James said that “If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, ‘Here’s a good seat for you,’ but say to the poor man, ‘You stand there’ or ‘sit on the floor by my feet,’ have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?… If you really keep the royal law found in scripture, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing right.  But if you show favoritism, you sin...”

It’s become increasingly difficult to discriminate against people based on the clothes they wear.

So we have invented a new standard, their language.

We commend ourselves because we say to the poor man,”come into our church so that we can pity you and patronize you,” all the while turning neighbors away from our homes and churches because they use words that we have decided are ugly.

Even those that agree that profanity is an arbitrary standard used to judge would never do so in public.

Preachers that say damn and hell in their homes would never dare to do so in the pulpit.

As for myself, I choose to make myself the least as best as I can (which, granted, isn’t very well).  I don’t visit the lower classes, I don’t pay them a visit so that I can pick them up out of their dirty, ugly despair.

But instead, I submerse myself in them and abandon the arbitrary rules of society, which are only the rules of the rich, the lawmakers and the voters.

It is not our job to break their habits, to conform the way they speak, but to love all in the unique place where God has placed them.

Profanity is not a sign of the devil, it’s a dialect.

Next, will we discriminate against those that have been raised to speak ebonics?  It’s not a real language after all, it’s not as good as our real English.

Excuse me, perhaps I’ve hit a nerve.

Comments

Indubitably!

ear muffs. if u don’t like it . ear muffs

my students listen to a lot of American hip hop. while im a fan of hip hop there is a certain word rappers throw around which i and many other Americans would never say.

my kids don’t understand the word and they choose to throw it around as well. i didn’t realize this till i saw some students messing around on the computers while working on a project and titled their newspaper with the N word. i prolly ran across that room and was like wtf guys! ok i didn’t say fuck but i wanted too. i did a short explanation and told them i never wanted to hear them use that word ever again.

words are words but its the history behind certain words the give it meaning.
but on that note Ear Muffs!…
i have no fucking problem with cuss words.

You’re right Rachel.

I don’t mean to say that we should say anything we want just because we can.

Some words are offensive for good reason.  But even then there is a double standard.

-Brad

Rachel, don’t say the f word.  I’m not a fan of it and it’s used way too much in our society, especially the movies.  I do swear way too much but I was used to it growing up, working in a factory and hanging out with my peers.  But no one ever used the f word.  I’m done preaching.

I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to clean up my own language (nurses have the worst potty mouths!) and I agree with you, Teddy, our society has become way too loose with the use of profane language that is used unnecessarily.  I can’t even find a movie that’s appropriate for my small children to watch anymore.  It’s one thing for words to fly out of one’s mouth in the heat of rage but we can totally control what we put into writing--it’s called the backspace key!  :o) (I know, I probably just lost my “cool aunt” status)!

I think you both may have missed the point of this post.

The only reason you want your children not to swear is so that they can aspire to a social class above nurses and factory workers.

This attitude is insulting.  It’s unfair to consider yourself better than someone else simply because you’ve been taught a different language.

Instead of simply preaching about the pitfalls of “profane” language, I would love to hear a rational argument for why we should discriminate against others based on their vocabulary selection.

If you’d like to send a rational argument to simplyonelife@gmail.com, I’d be happy to post it as a guest author.

Would Jesus want us to consider ourselves better than others based on the way we speak?

-B

lets all agree to disagree. and hold hands and skip down the street.
sometimes i want to skip here in prague but the czech people stare and i sometimes trip over cobblestones.

ugh..... why do we always have to overanalyze everything? deb and teddy are right, cuss words shouldnt be used on a blog. my cuzzies read this and i sure wouldnt want them to see it. its really unnecessary

I thought we had freedom of speech in this country.

It’s not like we are planning on cursing up a storm, but I’m not going to replace a curse word with a watered down meaningless word to make people feel better. 

It’s the meaning behind the word not the actual word that makes it a curse.

Is there any difference between saying crap and shit?

The implication is still the same.

This blog is for us to share our lives and in my life I curse sometimes.  They’re just words.  The only reason people freak out is because society has applied some arbitrary meaning to it.

Brad -

“The only reason you want your children not to swear is so that they can aspire to a social class above nurses and factory workers.”

Perhaps you are missing the point. I teach my children to speak to people with respect and love, regardless of the words they use. I don’t care if they are speaking to a nurse, a pastor, a CEO, or their gypsy aunt and uncle. On one hand, your point has merit. If I call you a jelly head (which, by the way, I think you are) in anger and resentment, then it really doesn’t matter whether the word is socially acceptable or not, if my intent is hate. On the other, I also see the value in being deliberate about the words that I use. They are powerful. They have the ability to simultaneously create and destroy.

As far as social class…you lost me.  I have had the opportunity to sit in both board rooms with VPs of Fortune 100s and Lorton Correctional Facility and have heard every word used in every context in both situations.

I don’t care what you say. I don’t care what you write. Just so you acknowledge the revolution you’re leading (where are we going anyway?) is hurting people. (let’s read all of James; I would suggest 1:19-27 has some interest here)

Judgment is judgment and, honestly, I’ve been reading an awful lot of it over the last couple of weeks.

I love you - Jiminy

I think it’s great that everyone has jumped in on this discussion.

Brian, you’ve presented a good argument.

I just don’t think James was talking about profanity.  “Profanity” really says more about the listener than the speaker.

If criticism is hurtful, then, really, what’s the point in any of us discussing anything?

As we said in “A Warning”, this content isn’t for everyone, and if anyone finds the material hurtful or irresponsible, it would be best that he not subject himself to it.

I believe that part of our job as followers of Jesus is to free people from arbitrary social distinctions that divide us, and bring each other together in love.

Have your feelings regarding profanity helped you form relationships with people different from you, or hindered that?

These words are expletives, designed to express great emotion.  Why limit our scope of emotions and vocabulary?

You guys know that we love you all.  But if we’re not going to bother to say anything with these posts, then why write anything at all?

My comment on James wasn’t about profanity either....

I go back to “I don’t care what you say.” I can cuss with the best of them. I was an infantry SGT for six years for God’s sake. I’ve won competitions. But, again, I have learned how powerful language is. It may be arbitrary; much the way a red octagonal shape posted on the corner of an intersection is an arbitrary symbol. But we’ve all decided to agree upon its meaning. My point is that if your choice of words is getting you the impact that you want, then hallelujah. But the impact that it seems you are having is to polarize your audience around a single issue. Start driving on the left side of the road if you choose to, but be prepared that you may hurt someone else. Even if you put a bumper sticker on the front of your car warning everyone else about what you will be doing.
“This website itself was supposed to be a revolution against society, religion and the definition of life that we hold dear as Americans.  Instead it has become a travel log to keep our friends and family updated on our fairy tale adventures”
You can’t control who your audience is. It is what it is. Does the speaker have ANY responsibility for who their listener is? At the very least I would argue that you have responsibility for your emotional wake. For a leader, there are no casual comments. Just a thought.—Jiminy

BTW - while not intentional at the onset, my clever little avatar was originally a Euphemism popular in the 30s & 40s. It was the Gosh Darn it! equivalent to taking Jesus Christ in vain. (Jiminy Cricket my brother can be a jelly head – that sort of thing).

Brian.  Once again, good comments.  You know that I love a good discussion, and I don’t think we’re that far off from each other.

When it comes to our audience, let’s keep in mind that you were carefully handpicked for every television show you watch.

If what we are doing was popular, we wouldn’t be living in our car.  It would just be the way things are.

It wouldn’t be right for us to decide what to say based on how popular our thoughts are, would it?

Personally, I’m thankful that Jesus was willing to polarize his Jewish audience.

Sorry - I can’t continue this thread. I have a rule (well, really more of a guideline than a rule) that I will only respond twice to a blog-based discussion. It just loses too much context for me. So if you ever want the last word on me, just post three times.

We can continue this at the next Pizza Hut God lines up for us.

Peace - Jiminy