April 24, 2006
My daily diary of hearing F bombs
You never know exactly when it's coming ... only that it is coming.
At some point in every day, you will be subjected to a completely gratuitous dropping of the F bomb.
Or if you live in Baltimore, let's be more accurate: You may be subjected to near-continual dropping of F bombs.
Last night, I walked our older sheltie, Beau, and got ready to bring him up the front steps. I stopped to chat with two of the neighbors. Neighbor 1 told me about his girlfriend, his future job in New York, his own dog, and minor problems with other dogs who are walked off leash. These little stories required at least three glaringly inappropriate uses of "f-ing" as an adjective.
Note to Neighbor 1: I nearly flinched each time you used the word -- it felt like being hit in the ear. My mind struggled to come up with a proper way to make this known. Should I have noted brightly, "F Bomb"? Or ask him, "When did the memo come out saying that word was appropriate around women? I must have missed that."
If there is a such a secret memo, is this more fiery blowback, another unintended consequence, of feminism? Is it the case that now that some women (especially girl gangbangers) think they can swear like sailors, men (especially sons) no longer have a clue about how to behave?
Anyway, when Neighbor 1 said he was moving in four months, I took the easy way out: Wimping out. It won't be a problem for long if he's moving soon and I avoid him in the meantime. Later I learned that Neighbor 2 (male) was equally offended by the language, and similarly reasoned that Neighbor 1 is moving soon.
That just leaves thousands of other Baltimoreans who still sling the word around. Professionals, gangbangers passing by on the street, construction workers, athletes, and many in between. Note to everybody: You're not cool, you're not shocking anyone, you're just tone-deaf and making almost every corner of our city coarse.
Maybe I need to print out the chart above and carry it around Baltimore, the City that F-Carpetbombs Everyone's Ears, to show to people. Guess what -- two-thirds of the public is offended by your language.
Walking around our neighborhood, I often also hear the M-F Superbomb. From a distance, it sounds like, "m'h fhuh, that m'h fhuh m'h fhuh." Muffled but menacing, the individual syllables of the word aren't crystal clear, but the hostility and anger are. It sounds really ugly -- maybe the ugliest sound humans can make.
The graphic above was published with an article entited, Poll: Americans See, Hear More Profanity. When I read the article, it reminded me that I have thought about keeping a diary of the appalling language that I hear everyday. If compressed, it would read something like this. All examples are real:
- 8 a.m. Walk dogs. Overhear, "m'h FH, that m'h FH m'h FR," from pair of gangstas. Cross the light at Ann and Lombard and hear F bombs in stereo! One from two guys on scaffolding doing their work, the other from three men strolling by, one saying, "I'm not going down f-ing Broadway."
- 9 a.m. Go to Light Street Cycles. Gen-X repair crew pumps out loud rap with high F-bomb quotient. They apparently assume that every single customer wanting to buy or repair a bike or get supplies enjoys smutty language.
- 10 a.m. Guys getting on Light Rail at Camden Yards drop a few F-bombs. "C'mon guys," I implore, shaking my head. They respond, "We're not talking to you." "You're in a public place!" I point out. Their body language -- quieter, calmer, subdued -- acknowledges that on some level, they know they should clean it up.
- Noon. I have a hair appointment at the home of my hairdresser. Her daughter's friend, John, high school age, Fs this and Fs that. John and the daughter leave the kitchen, where my haircut and color are taking place. "What do you think of them?" my hairdresser asks. As she washes my hair in the sink, I reply, "Using the F word is inappropriate around women. It just is. And he won't know that if he's allowed to use bad language in the house." She's quiet, neither agrees or disagrees.
- 3 p.m. Go to Du Burns Arena to watch Lamont's soccer team play. A tall player, mid-20s, in athletic gear, waits in stands for his game to begin. He pulls cell phone out of his gym bag and engages in loud conversation that includes the word M-F. As he passes me to take the steps down to start his game, I quietly say, "Some language." He snaps back immediately an attempt at something clever. The metacommunication, or message behind the message, is, This is a men's space. If you don't like it, you can leave.
"Guess no one ever told you to watch your language around women," I say evenly.
- 5 p.m. Next, to Tyson's bar in Canton, which sponsors Lamont's team, the Slackers. A guy with a red Abe Lincoln beard F-bombs merrily at the NCAA basketball game on the TV screen. He may be a regular, and I've never been here before. No leverage to get him to watch his mouth around ladies. I shrug this one off. If I had the graphic above, maybe I could hand it to him.
- 7 p.m. Off to catch the latest play at Center Stage, Radio Golf. From the stage, the actors emit F bombs, S words and I believe the M-F word.
I just don't understand the need for this language anymore. Playwright August Wilson must have thought he was lending street cred to his script. It's nearly 40 years after the Sixties -- I thought we were long past using language for shock value? No one in the audience seems to blink at the words.
Hail to my mom, who just turned 80 with a bangup birthday celebration, for knowing what good behavior -- heck, with knowing what a little class -- consists of, and instilling this knowledge in her children, without concessions to being faux-hip. It really isn't as cool as people think it is to throw around bad language once past the junior-high rebellion stage.
To me, bad language -- especially that of the jock at Du Burns arena -- is (or should be) a rather serious matter against women. Males (but not men, or gentlemen) sometimes use bad language to mark an area as off-limits to women -- as a hostile move.
Maybe what's really going on is that there is no concept anymore of what being a gentleman entails.
I confess my own failings in the matter. I am not perfect in abstaining from the F bomb. It is something that escapes the mouth when, say, a hammer hits my thumb, or I am playing goalie in soccer and a shot goes by, into the net. Even then, I try to keep swearing at a murmur, not for the ears of others.
This quote from the article linked above also sees the F-word as something only for moments of extreme frustration:
And Donnell Neal of Madison Lake, Minn., notes how she'll hear the F-word used as a mere form of emphasis, as in: "That person scared the f--- out of me!" Neal, 26, who works with disabled adults, says she swears only in moments of extreme frustration, "like if someone cuts me off when I'm driving, or if I'm carrying something and someone shuts the door in my face." Even then, she says, she'll likely use "milder cuss words" -- and never at work.
Some young folks have bought into the canard that the F word, and the C word (which I truly detest), is "just a word." At Tyson's bar, Slacker pal George goaded me to say "c" word. "It's just a word," he said, his Gen-X pseudo-reasoning as predictable as the sun coming up in the East.
I thought, "George, I'm not restraining myself because I'm inhibited. I'm restraining myself because it's a matter of having a little class and decorum."
And I'm restraining myself because, as a writer, I know the power of words. Almost no word is "just a word." All have meanings. It's precisely because of their power that they need to be saved for the right times. I'd say vulgarity may be forgivable if you are hitting your thumb with a hammer. If there's no hammer in sight, save it -- I'm tired of the hammering on my ears.
- posted by jbelliveau at 11:25 AM in The Neighborhood
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