Foul language is the mark of the uneducated,
The ones who didn’t persevere.
Whilst the educated stuck it
To avoid obscenities like fuck it,
From the learned, oh fiddlesticks is all you will hear.
At the time of writing this, Screecher Creature No. 3 was
shouting “bollix, bollix, bollix” over and over again. I have often caught him swearing at a toy,
calling it an “effin’ yoke.” Insert full
and proper obscenity here. I do it
myself. When I hear something I like, I
tend to retain it but once I repeat it back, it’s gone. Whoosh!
Out of my head, never to be thought of again. I wish Screecher Creature No. 3 would forget
his expletives as soon as he uses them. Kids are like sponges, or so I’ve read
often enough. They will soak up
everything, oblivious to the appropriateness of whatever it is they have just
heard, and spit it back out again. Apparently when I was three or four, my father
had me spell the poo word for a friend of his. Outside the church of all places. It was received with great merriment. When I was a lot older, to know better at
least, I told my mother where to go by writing it on a blackboard. I cannot recall the crime that was committed
against me that drove me to do it, and allow her to see it in retaliation, but
I do remember getting a wallop for my efforts (my mother has mellowed a lot
since) and sent to bed. If I hark back,
it was a bright Summers evening and after about a half hour or so, by my
reckoning, I crept out of the bed thinking all would have been forgiven. I got
another crack for myself and was sent straight back to the scratcher. Right now I am ignoring Screecher Creature No.
3 in the
hope that he stops swearing or at least takes it down a notch and doesn’t waken
his sleeping baby brother. (I need to
get this done. I haven’t time to
discipline.) I swear myself sometimes. I admit it.
I probably do it a lot more than is strictly necessary. Oh alright then, I definitely do it a lot
more than is strictly necessary. I get
great liberation from it. I tend to get
colourful when I’m cross, when I feel passionate about something and when I
drop things. I didn’t always do this. At least I don’t think I did. I remember working for a female boss who
swore like a trooper. It shocked me. Probably because it was my first proper job
outside my home town and up until then, employers always behaved and spoke
professionally. I didn’t know how to
take this profanity liking woman. She
admitted that her husband hated her swearing.
Hated it but she got great release from it. I get that now. Mister Husband doesn’t like me swearing
either but *whispers* he should talk.
Bland outbursts like “sausages” “sugar” and “fiddlesticks” just don’t
cut it for me. Only a full on hard core expletive will do the job. I’m not Quentin Tarantino now or anything, I
do have a cut- off point; I just have to find it is all. In fairness to the Screechers, for boys who
are exposed to their fair share of bad words, they don’t indulge
themselves. It is just Screecher
Creature No. 3 who gets colourful on occasion which is a good thing because
usually I can’t help grinning when he gets vocally artistic. Yes, they call
each other “stoopid,” and “dumbass” has been used on occasion. Those fekin American cartoons! “Poopy head” is one that is guaranteed to be
followed by howls of hysterical laughter.
I always pull them up when they insult each other. Telling someone they are stupid, in my
opinion, is worse than swearing. A cuss
word is, after all, just a word, but an insult has real power to hurt and
scar. I feel there is a big difference
between selectively ignoring the odd four letter word and not getting shirty
with them when they disrespect each other. Screecher Creature No. 3 really is just
repeating what he has heard so it is up to me, his teacher, to make a conscious
effort to cut back on the profanities. I’ll try to keep them in my head now but like
a lot of things these days, sometimes they just escape!
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