"Language." "Nng, sorry..."

[prog]

So babies & toddlers are starting to inevitably spread through my social group, and are being brought to gaming events, which serve as the mead-halls for my social life. This much is fine. I like kids OK, and I like smart kids a lot, so I honestly look forward to this crop getting old enough to think and talk, so I can start feeling jealous for their awesome childhoods within a whole crowd of delightfully immature "aunts" & "uncles". (Versus that of poor baby jmac, raised by friendless oldsters and sent to bed at 6pm every night. Alas!)

But there is one thing I don't like so much: it's accepted that, when the wee ones are around, all the grown-ups must refrain from using cuss-words. This actually makes me a little annoyed. Actually: rather annoyed, and a little angry, that I must constrain my own behavior for reasons which, when I think them through, seem more harmful than beneficial to the kids in question.

I mean: beyond being a futile exercise (you do plan on sending them to school one day, yes?), it smacks of teaching one's children a known falsehood, setting them up for later disillusionment and confusion. I guess I could see it if we as a group truly abused the words to a nautical degree, but I would argue that we use them as proper language flavoring: salt rather than syrup, if you will. So wouldn't one want to expose their kids to smart grown-ups speaking naturally, rather than teach them the fiction that the words simply don't exist, and are never said by anyone?

Naturally, I say all this as a non-parent, and further one who can't imagine changing this status, not without a rather severe personal mental rearrangement, so maybe there's something magical I'm not getting. Furthermore, were I ever put in charge of a child, I would (barring, again, a drastic change of personal philosophy) teach them during their first sentient Xmas the truth about both Santa Claus and Jesus Christ, and I don't know how different this strategy would be from even the new parents in my current crowd.

Comments

as a parent

[jtroutman.livejournal.com]

well, it is more of a logistical problem. if you ever have the experience of a small child (say 2 years old) running around chanting "fucking asshole!" over and over again in a sing-song voice, you can't really understand. The child did not really know what it meant, but that had heard it, and they were repeating it. And that can lead to some interesting situations if you are taking said child out in public.

I don't swear much. I *can* and do swear, when needed. I believe that if you use swear words too often, they loose their impact and power. I know some folks that swear all of the time, and I don't really like it. It just makes them seem illiterate and dumb. If you can't find a way to express your anger to someone other than saying "fucking fuck fuck fuck" then maybe you have an issue. It doesn't offend me on moral grounds or anything like that.

Because I don't swear much, when I drop a careful placed F-bomb into a conversation (like if I am reprimanding someone), they really go 'wow, he is really upset about that", and it makes a bigger impact.

I have known guys coming from armed services backgrounds that literally had to make up new swear words and combinations all of the time, because the normal ones had lost their effectiveness.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

had to make up new swear words and combinations

Is that where "asshat" and "cockfarmer" came from?

[jtroutman.livejournal.com]

yes... had not heard of "cockfarmer" before.. that is a good one.

I knew a guy who had used words like "assjack", "dickweed"... and many others that I have forgotten. He could swear in a most impressive manner. He could go on for fully 30 seconds, with only a single noun being used. Of course, he did tech support. But he was always good in front of customers.