Cuss Tooth is what I call people who use profanity, vulgarity, foul language, who swear, curse, or cuss. This is something that has always bothered me. I took a day trip once with a couple of my classmates from podiatry school, this was several years ago of course, and I got into a conversation/discussion/debate about this very topic. I don't remember exactly how the subject came up but, we were driving back to the city after spending the day together. I mentioned that I thought it was very disrespectful, and offensive, for, specifically, men to swear in the presence of women. This happened to be a male classmate I was having the debate with, and it was me with another female friend in the car with him. Just for the record, I feel it's disrespectful and offensive for anybody to swear in anybody's presence regardless of gender.
My classmate's position was that swearing was necessary to be able to fully express yourself. My position was, if you are an intelligent person with even an average vocabulary, you should be able to express yourself and get your point across without using profanity. He and I had quite the discussion (it was a long ride back to the city). Neither of us budged on our position, but hopefully I gave him something to think about.
Something that he brought up, which I believe is a valid point, is the issue of euphemisms. Is it any better to use a euphemism? It might not be better but, to me, it is not as offensive. Some of the euphemisms that we use sound very similar to the actual swearword. And, in fact, it is sometimes hard to decipher whether someone was actually using profanity or a euphemism. This is something that I have been trying to work on. I have substituted one phrase for many of the euphemisms I used to use. And as most of you know, that phrase is, good thunder. And you might ask, where did you come up with this? Well it all started with my brother's mission to Minnesota. There is a city in Minnesota called, good thunder, Minnesota. And that's where that comes from. I also like to use GT for short. So anyone who wants to wants to work on changing the euphemisms or swear words you use, good thunder is a great substitute :-).
One of the arguments I presented to my classmate was, swearwords pose no purpose to a sentence. You can completely remove all profanity from a sentence, and the meaning of the sentence will not change. I was going to give you some examples by inserting [blank] in place of the euphemism or swearword but, I decided I didn't even want to do that. I'm sure you can figure out what I mean.
The most offensive use of profanity to me, is probably the most common, and that is taking the Lord's name in vain. I read a statistic that 86% of the population of the United States is Christian. And if you include the Jews that number probably goes to over 90%. As far as I know, most Jews and Christians profess to believe the 10 Commandments. The third Commandment states:
Exodus 20:7 " Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain."
Yet, taking the name of the Lord in vain, is extremely common. I can't even watch a benign television show like "House Hunters" without hearing it several times. This is quite disturbing to me. This is another topic I will talk about on a different post. That is, television shows and swearing.
So why is it that profanity is so rampant? Even amongst members of the Church. I have several hypotheses about this, one of which is, perhaps it is a sign of macho-ism. Which to me, is totally absurd. When I hear people using profanity, they go way down on my respect- o-meter. There is nothing cool or macho about it. Like I told my colleague, to me, it is a sign of lack of intelligence. [He didn't like that one too much] :-)
Another hypothesis I have is that profanity is so rampant because people don't consider it as offensive, and wrong, and disrespectful as they once did. There are some people I know, who don't even realize it, when they are swearing. If you tell them about it, and ask them not to use profanity, they might say they didn't realize they said anything profane. This is a sad sign of how desensitized we have become as a society. This again is another topic for later discussion. For now, that's my two cents.
I really dislike swearing and cussing...at all. I have spent the last 12 years of my life with a TV Guardian hooked up to my TV to cut out any offensive language...and that's just language on TV, that is not even considered bad by society, although it should be! I do not know why one of the 10 commandments, not taking the name of the Lord in vain, is not even considered cussing or swearing to most people. I have heard the name of the Lord taken in vain on children's shows, which are rated G for general audience. I get very upset at that. I remember being at someone's house and a movie from the 80's (rated PG) was playing and cussing. Juliet and I said we didn't want to watch the movie and we were going to do something else. One person said, "If we didn't watch shows with cussing there would be nothing to watch." I said, "Fine by me." I don't feel I'm missing out on anything by not seeing the latest flick. The second bad language enters anything, the Spirit is gone.
ReplyDeleteI do not need garbage in my life. I'm dealing with enough garbage as it is. My kids are exposed to so much bad language while riding the school bus, in the halls, in class, and at recess. It really upsets me if I'm standing in line with my kids at the grocery store and people behind me (grown adults)are using horrible language and don't even think anything of it. By keeping bad language out of my home, we are able to feel the peace that comes from the Spirit.
I've been called "extreme," I've been called a "religious fanatic" and all kinds of names for living my standards-- but I am happy!