News Tagged ‘I swear’

I am packing suitcases so that Libby, the boys and I can take our leave of Cornwall. I am being observed by a visiting Australian brother-in-law who for no particular reason, starts to sing absently.
‘I’m not a pheasant plucker, I’m a pheasant plucker’s son, and I’ll be plucking pheasants…’
‘Til the pleasant fu…’
‘DONE!’ He shouts, drowning out my profanity.
‘It’s okay,’ I say wryly. ‘We’re all grown men here.’
‘Not us, the children.’ He says, glancing out into the hall in which some unsuspecting kids might be lurking.
‘It’s nothing they haven’t heard before.’ I opine.
‘Mine haven’t,’ He shoots back. ‘I’ll tell them when they’re older, it will be so funny when I explain that rhyme to them.’
‘You do know they go to school don’t you?’ I say.
‘It’s a grammar school.’
‘But still…’ I trail off and start thinking, could it be true? Had his children really never heard any swear words? It might explain a few things, like why they hadn’t seen ‘Back to the Future’ and were both reading ‘Swallows and Amazons’. Cripes! Perhaps it was just me that thought swearing was normal, the notorious potty mouth, the one Libby had once furnished with a proper swear jar. She had quickly given up on it though as it never had much money in it and what little there was I would sneakily recycle, that or cover my swear debt with IOU’s. I never thought anything of it to be honest, had always felt there was no such thing as bad language, only emphasis, everyone is capable of being offended by language, good or bad if they so choose, but giving offence is intention and I never intended to offend anyone.

This of course is not an excuse, I have always been aware that some words are unacceptable in polite company and since having children have made an effort to curb my trooper inclination, but with limited success. I couldn’t understand it, I never swore in front of old people or in the shop but with friends or in the pub I was renowned for my oh-so inventive invective. At home it was different, less performance based with only the occasional curse parping out. It was never deliberate, more a case of being relaxed enough not to self censor, like farting in bed, and besides my children were all boys, swearing was second nature, well it would be. None of this really flew with Libby who, after the swear jar fiasco, tried a different tack with the children and told our youngest son if anything untoward should ever escape my lips to ignore it but also to tell me off, which is somewhat contradictory I know. Unfortunately his standard admonishment was so sweetly comedic (Daddy, I won’t tell you again) that it almost encouraged me to swear just so I could hear him say it.

Perhaps that is the slightly bothersome point, like Father like son, after all I gained my appreciation of the unencumbered vocab from my Dad. It was an unintentional education but it was captivating, specialising as he did in the alliterated expletive. I remember him once saying something divinely deserved and utterly unrepeatable to a milkman over an inexcusable gold top transgression that left the hapless chap quite unable to deliver. He gave no sense of offence taken, just of white flag waved and as the last of three ‘F’s’ rolled off him I was impressed for entirely the wrong reason, enough to want to master my own ballistic linguistics. I don’t blame my Father, he is a thoroughly honourable gent, but thinking about it I can see that I was seduced by the power of the magic oaths he cast. I am not alone in this, and as further justification of my own predilection for bad diction there follows a potted history of swearing.

Swear words are actually the most commonly used words in the English language and always have been. So there. The idea of swearing is an ancient one, one that has been with us from the beginning, though actually calling it swearing is fairly recent. During the Reformation it was not unusual for succeeding monarchs to switch religions and when they did they would call upon their subjects to demonstrate loyalty to them and their particular faith. This resulted in the swearing of an oath to a god you quite possibly did not believe in and as a consequence taking God’s name in vain became increasingly common. ‘Swearing’ and ‘Oath’ became shorthand for offensive language. The offence caused by blasphemy or slur is obvious but the power of other expletives is a mystery and literal meaning is often only a part of it. So called dirty words, those based on bodily function only gained traction when those functions, once carried out in public, became private, this is typical of oaths, privacy, secrecy, taboo. So much so that all swear words are held in a different part of the brain, away from decent language, and letting them out causes not only a shock to the recipient’s mind but also increases their skin conductivity, swear words are both figuratively and literally, electrifying.

Is it any wonder then that we are equally fascinated and repelled by them? Denying their existence is pointless, you are already in possession of them, or possibly, they are in possession of you. Even if you are not aware of it you have a few ripe ones hanging heavy, juicy, ready and waiting to be picked. Despite this I can’t help feeling that the Australian brother-in-law was onto something, I still don’t believe that any words are innately bad, but clearly incorrect or inappropriate usage of them is. It is my duty as a parent to contain ideas that I don’t want my children to entertain just yet and swear words carry, whether I like it or not, really big ideas, some of them disagreeable. With this in mind I will keep a tighter lid on my proclivity, pretend I am in an old people’s home or a police station or something, from now on I will endeavour to do better and to set a good example, to ensure that I appear, in the eyes of my sons at least, a really pheasant plucker.