Dirty language????

This is an essay I wrote a few years back while I was writing an op ed column for a local newspaper.

There are some points I want to make about its thesis....but first...

...the essay:



Jack Garner, film critic for Gannett News Service, recently wrote an article discussing the abundant use of "dirty language" in today's movies.

As usual in articles of this sort, he honed in on one particular word to illustrate his point...mentioning that the word had been used 85 times in the movie "Good Will Hunting" and even more frequently in "The Big Lebowski."

Garner began his essay with, "This is a story about a word I can't write in this newspaper. It starts with 'f' and ends with 'k'..."

Well, when your name begins with '"f" and ends with "k" you tend to sit up and take notice of a sentence like that.

But, of course, it was not the name "Frank" he had in mind.

I also eliminated "fork" because I had seen that word in print just seconds earlier--in a Miss Manners' piece chiding people who use fingers when eating chicken in settings where "...a cultured person would use a fork."

And surely it couldn't be fink, flak, flank, funk, flunk, flask, fleck, flick, flock, folk, frisk, forelock, fetlock, flintlock, or fiddlestick--because those words are found in newspapers all the time.

Nope. I knew it had to be the word Phil Rizzuto used to call "the magic word" when explaining why a player or manager had gotten tossed from a ballgame after an argument with an umpire.

"Oops," the Scooter would say, "he musta used the magic word."

In any case, by the end of his article, Garner allowed that he and most of his fellow film critics are not especially offended by that kind of language anymore--nor does he think the viewing public is all that put off by it either.

"It's part of contemporary life," was his resigned observation.

I'd like to go him one better.

To me, someone using "offensive language" is often less offensive than someone over-reacting to it.

Language is language; words are words--getting into too big a snit over them is idiotic. They're essentially just sounds, for heaven sakes.

Certainly no one would get in an uproar over the use of the word "cuff." Right?

But pronounce it backwards and you'll see some people go ballistic. Why?

Wanna know how we can end this problem of people using "dirty language" completely and forever?

It's a piece of cake.

Let's all just agree that every word and phrase is perfectly acceptable in any context. Let's agree that no word used to describe body parts or physical activities will ever be deemed in any way to be offensive.

Let's all just agree that any word of that sort can be used interchangeably with any other words for those parts or activities.

And let's agree that words like "drat" and "darn" or any of those other slightly more forceful societal expletives--can be used anywhere and everywhere without offense being given or taken.

Poof! That'd be it.

The problem would disappear completely.

If we don't conspire to designate words as "dirty" or "offensive"--nobody would be able to use dirty or offensive language.

And make no mistake about it--that's all were doing. We are arbitrarily defining certain words or sounds as dirty or offensive.

As you might guess, folks, I don't really expect to get anywhere with this argument, but this essay is more than just an exercise in writing.

If there's ever been a good example of a problem that is a non-problem, dirty language is it.

Dirty language doesn't even exist, except that some go out of their way to cause it to be.

It is like insisting that eating chicken with one's fingers is impolite or offensive.

Let's just change that rule (who makes these rules anyway???) and the problem disappears.

Oh, yeah. One last thing.

My favorite part of a chicken or turkey dinner is a wing.

I'd love to see Miss Manners tackle a crispy, roasted chicken wing with a fork.

Now that would be offensive.