IT'S ONLY WORDS (OR IS IT?)!

I was brought up to understand certain words are not appropriate in most circumstances. Period. (There was a time when even that last word made people [usually those of the male persuasion] uncomfortable.)

In spite of the time I spend on Facebook, I am still a bit shocked by the matter-of-fact usage of some of the biggest no-no's. I am sure the users of such words have no understanding that swearing still makes some of us old timers uneasy. (Full disclosure: having gone through 6 months of basic training and AIT [11B10], I could easily out swear any of you and did at one time, but I don't now.) It is very rare that I use swear words, because I know how and when to use them for maximum effectiveness. Yes, I may seen like a snowflake to uncouth boors, but suck it up.

Forewarned is forearmed. If you swear in my presence, chances are good I won't react, but it is appreciated if you don't. If you do, I will mentally assume no one taught you manners, but that's me. If I swear in your presence, we are probably watching the news together.

Alan Sherman, comedian and musician ("Hello, Muddah! Hello, Fadduh! - A Letter from Camp Granada") was around before most of your times. He wrote a book called The Rape of the APE: The Official History of the Sexual Revolution. The APE referred to is the American Puritan Ethic.

In order to inure people to changing times in those days, in the book there was one chapter, entitled, "Short Chapter, Long Footnote." From Amazon, "...it was just just the single word "F*ck" followed by an asterisk. The "Long Footnote" goes on for 20 more pages as he excruciatingly scrutinizes (no pun intended) the four-letter word, providing its possible origins, and our different ways of saying this forbidden word (like saying "screwed" or "I'm seeing him") without actually saying it. Sherman confesses that the word held such power over him personally, that he devoted nearly three full pages of this book to just typing the word again and again and again, until after about the 487th time of typing it, he found he wasn't nearly so traumatized by it anymore."

Maybe I should try that.