On the most recent episode of Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory, Rob describes a recent fight with his mother that he regretfully ended up cursing out. He felt so bad about this that he started a "No cursing coalition," in hope to persuade other people, mainly kids, to use alternate words instead of curse words. He even went undercover to a nearby nursing home to see what kind of alternate words the elderly use. Based on this Rob went on to design his a clothing line based on these words. Even though this was meant to be comical, I felt that I could really relate to it. I feel that kids these days use dirty words way to often. I find myself saying words like shit and fuck way to often. Sometimes they slip in front of my boss, or a teacher, or the elderly, or even my saint of a mother. The worst is when your in a public place and you say one of these words to loud and you confronted by a parent of a child near by. But who is to blame? Are parents the ones at fault? Maybe TV or films or music? I could always agree with my father who would tell me, "I don't understand your music. The Beatles made millions of dollars without saying one curse word." I feel that using these words just make us sound dumb and feeble minded. I agree that there is a time and a place for these words to be used but all and all I think that it's something that we really need to tone down as a culture.
One of my friends is a pretty religious guy and goes out of his way to use other words in place of the usual four letter goodies. Earlier this summer I heard "Get the fudge out of my house" and my friends and I all looked at each other like did he really just say that..?
ReplyDeleteUsing cuss words can lead to people thinking you are uncivil and disrespectful. But using fudge, and dagnabit...idk it just seems feeble also.
I think it kind of ties back to semiotics, too. Curse words have really strong connotations and its really not the same when you have to substitute them (the connotations of the substitutions are more funny and less serious).
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why Rob Dyrdek thinks elderly people don't swear, though. I learned all of my swearing vocabulary from both of my veteran grandfathers (although they did try to tone it down around grandchildren).
Anyway, while I do think that we as a society do need to be more conscientious as to when and where we swear.
I agree. I mean young kids, and I mean YOUNG, are learning some of the worst curse words out there...thanks to...what??? It's sad that this is what society has come to.
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