Oh, how coarse our language has become, says the guy who studied for the ministry and has worked in small-town journalism for the better part of four decades.
The item in front of us comes from the area of global concern: Snake Island, which is off the coast of Ukraine. The Russian dictator’s conscripts issued a warning to the 13 Ukrainian defenders of the island to lay down their arms and surrender. The response was succinct, powerful, and profane: “Russian warship: Go bleep yourself.”
I may be using the word “bleep” a lot during the course of today’s essay, because I don’t want to use the other word or words that may (or may not) be in the quote. A little mystery is not a bad thing. One of my favorite stories from raising three children is when my youngest child came home from kindergarten and went to his grandmother (my wife’s mother, who was visiting at the time) and said this: “Grandma, I know all the bad words but two!” He was so proud of himself.
Which brought up a couple of questions I find myself trying to answer to this day: Which two didn’t he know, and how did he know he didn’t know them?
We were, and remain as empty-nesters, a pretty much profanity-free household. If I’m watching an online video or a movie that’s not on an over-the-air outlet, I may view it for a while but when I’m thinking they should have used “bleep” more than they are, I often turn it off.
(What cracks me up is when they use closed-captioning for the dialogue. They will keep the soundtrack intact for the words deemed bleepworthy but just leave spaces in the caption. In other words — and using other words is kind of the point of our gathering today — you can hear the bad words but you can’t read them. I have to wonder if the two words that Bobby didn’t know are among them.)
Depictions of warfare obviously have changed over the years. Someone associated with the movie business — actor, director, producer, or ticket taker — made a good point several years ago when he said that men on the front lines rarely say “golly,” “gee,” or “gosh.” That’s a point well taken. A moderate response from the 13 Ukrainian soldiers, who appeared to be united in their defiance, certainly would not have been as forceful as they did by saying something along the lines of “I don’t think so.”
There’s Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty, or give me death” from 1775. There is Nathan Hale’s “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country” which is a great line except that he never said it. (Scholars now attribute the line to Capt. William Hull, a friend of Hale’s.)
The best one of all, of course, is the response from Brigadier General Anthony C. McAuliffe when the German commander demanded his surrender at the Battle of the Bulge: “Nuts.”
Much of this column pertains to warfare and profanity, which have long had a long and strong relationship. An article by Valerie Fridland, Ph.D., recently posted on the Psychology Today website, said that the use of profanity increased after World War I and II. She cites a book titled “Holy Bleep” (this time, the topic of the “bleep” was excrement) written by Melissa Mohr. She concluded the increase was because “swearing was nothing compared to the horrors soldiers saw during the war.”
I understand. And it seems that the increase in profanity is kind of a generational thing. Clark Gable’s line in “Gone With the Wind” (“Frankly, Scarlet, I don’t give a bleep” — and the “bleep” this time rhymes with a word for something that blocks water) was a scandalous thing at the time. Then WWII came along. There have been others. What’s next?
What will be printed in newspapers in 20 years — assuming there are newspapers, that is? What will everyday conversation be like? Not many of us are ever going to be nose to nose with a Russian warship. What would your response have been?
Maybe it would be “nuts.” Maybe it would be John Paul Jones’ “I have not yet begun to fight.” And maybe, in the face of the incoming barrage,” I’d stick out my tongue and say “pttthh.” Not quotable, but it’s the first original thing I thought of.
By the way, the 13 Ukrainian soldiers are still alive. They fought until they ran out of ammunition. They’re now prisoners of war in Crimea. I may not like the word they used, but I’d like to shake their hands…
daves@news-banner.com
