We haven't posted in a while. Mostly b/c of moving/temporary bedrest/internet problems. But I will update you on all of that, and post pics of the new diggs after I say my piece about swearing. What is up with it? Am I taking crazy pills? Have I lived in Utah too long?
When did it become okay to use the f-word in print?
What set this all off, or rather, started the slow, steady boil in my brain that has finally erupted, is my subscription to the New Yorker. We got it as a thank-you gift for supporting our local public radio station (which I highly encourage, and they do NOT use the f-bomb.) I felt rather cosmopolitan and erudite and somehow more redeemed as a former English major by receiving such a famous and well-respected magazine. I especially looked forward to reading the fiction pieces. Maybe I know zilch about contemporary short-story writing and its market, but I could have sworn the New Yorker was a good place to start reading. When I got my first issue, my excitement fizzled away into a sad heap of disappointment. I don't remember exactly how I felt when I saw the first four-letter word right there in the middle of my "classy" magazine, but I know how I feel each time now: assaulted, betrayed, and disgusted (with myself and the writer.) And it wasn't just profanity. Week after week, the fiction piece would have, besides a slew of f-bombs, at least one crude reference to sex.
Okay, so I don't read the fiction. The news articles, analysis, and op ed pieces should be safe. WRONG! Exactly how does vulgarity enhance my understanding of the credit crisis? Or a new art instillation? Or the challenges facing eco-minded inventors in the 21st century??? Was there a huge shift in cultural values while I wasn't looking?
Adam is always bringing home from work novels he thinks I'll like. (What a good husband, I know.) I'll start one, get into it just far enough to where I'm hooked, then have to hand him back the book and say, "Sorry. Take it back." And then I feel so angry that I've just filled my mind with filth simply to read—and not finish—a good story. It's gotten to where I'm wary to pick up a book if it wasn't written at least half a century ago.
And don't even get me started on the language people here use in every day life. Adults and children alike can't seem to manage to communicate without the f-word. When Adam tells me what it's like at his work, I'm shocked and outraged. Since when is it professional to swear like a sailor in an office setting, with people you're not "totally friends" with, in meetings and such? I thought that kind of language was seen as "low class" and immature. Are we all turning into teenage boys? Are we condemned to live forever in a football locker room?
So those of you who are out in the working world, living outside Happy Valley, what have been your experiences? And to all my more-literate, more-published friends, am I way behind on the norms for professional writing?
Like I said, am I taking crazy pills? Or am I too enmeshed in my Mormon culture?
P.S. And what's up with the NY-er putting umlauts over the second vowel in words like "coördinate?"
11 comments:
I know, seriously, right? I don't get it, but it really bothers me, too. Only you're a better person than I am -- where you stop reading, I keep going. I try to close my eyes when the F word shows up (not that it really does anything...), but I just gulp, wonder what moral shift made it okay for it to be there, and continue on. It's obnoxious, really. What is this world coming to? And how am I going to raise my children in it (especially when I keep reading)?
About the umlauts: in French and subsequently borrowed into English, umlauts are used when two vowels are next to each other and both must be pronounced (rather than an in an diphthong, for example). So the umlauts"coördinate" indicate that you have to pronounce both "o"s rather than a long "o" like in "wood" or "cool". Other examples would be in names like "Cloë" and "Brontë"
Thanks, Frau. (I told you all I had more literate friends.) But why don't all publications do that? Have I been misspelling "coordinate" all this time?
Amen! You should hear what my patients call me sometimes. And their mothers. It's absolutely disgusting. I haven't yet gotten in trouble for telling them to be nice and to respect me and their families so I keep doing it. Maybe sometime it'll stick.
It makes me smile largely when R tells his friends to please not say those words. I feel immense pride when he does that and his friends usually oblige immediately! :D
Keep fighting the good fight for common decency by promoting clean speech! My students (adults) know better than to swear in class - I tease them with "No cussin'", or, if they take the Lord's name in vain, I tell them they may only do that if they are praying. When I am working with peers that cuss, they usually knowk it off as they come to know my values and end up apologizing to me when they slip. We on the straight and narrow have to walk the fine line of setting appropriate boundaries without deeply offending others.
No, you haven't been spelling "coordinate" wrong. The umlauts are mostly pretentious or done by francophiles. The proper English way of making sure you pronounce both vowels is a hyphen: co-ordinate.
Write to the New Yorker and tell them how you thought it was a classy mag. Tell them how you feel about the profanity and the vulgarity, even if it only appears in small doses. I would be so curious to know if they would write back to you. I, too, can't stand it when people drop the F-bomb. D*mn is also very common in NYC and not even considered a bad word. I agree that we should stand up for ourselves and our beliefs by voicing them. Kudos though for attempting to expand your reading material. I'm still stuck on the classics (mainly because it doesn't contain the vulgarity).
I always thought that the people who swore a lot were just the high school and collage age contingency that eventually outgrew it when they realized that the more adult population doesn't speak that way. Marshall hears it constantly in his profession. I'm lucky Marshall doesn't ever talk that way. I wish he could say the same about me.
Still trying to kick the habit...
Melanie, LOL. I know what you mean. I only resort to a damn or hell mostly when I want to make Adam really mad. It's cruel of me. I try to control myself.
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