I remember the first time I ever heard my dad swear.
I grew up hearing a lot of "Fudge!" and "Oh sugar!" from my mom's mouth, but I never heard an all-out swear. Maybe she was desperately fighting the constant cursing urge for her children's sake, or maybe she really doesn't swear all that much. Regardless, her efforts at keeping my mouth clean somehow backfired, although I can't say it was because she set a bad example for me. Must have been all those R-rated movies I watched whenever Doreen babysat.
Naturally, a child learns that swearing is bad, and that he or she shouldn't do it. And when that child becomes a teenager, the swearing becomes a form of out-of-earshot rebellion, a way to defy those repressive years of not being potty-mouthed around mom and pops. A vocal protest to parental rules, a reactionary way of claiming, "I'll say what I want to, damnit." even though we all know we'll all end up like our parents eventually no matter what we say or how we say it when we're teenagers.
Of course, swears are almost always superfluous and could be replaced by better, more expressive words, but really - nothing adds oomph like a well-placed naughty piece of speech.
I remember the first time I swore in front of my mom. We were watching "The Fugitive" in a movie theater - I must have been about 15 - and a very suspenseful moment was happening on-screen. I ducked down and said "Oh shit, now he's going to go in there and find..."
But I couldn't finish my sentence because I had accidently sworn. It was traumatizing.
So when I asked Dad an obvious question one day when I was 17 or 18, something to the tune of "Is relaxation defined by you as sitting in our jacuzzi-like bathtub with a beer or two and some sports program turned up way loudly on the 1984 little television still using antennas for reception while the rest of the family tries to drown out the sounds of the commentators by playing The Eagles or some equally cheesy band at high volumes?" and Dad answered, "Does a bear shit in the woods?" well, I just about thought that was my ticket to freedom. Dad had given me the greenlight. I could swear.
Maybe not around him though. Maybe not certain swear words. And maybe not profusely, but an occasional no-no could slip out somewhat unnoticed, provided it was of the "light" variety. Or at least "light" swears could be used without causing extreme offense.
Flashforward to 2003. I'm supposedly all grown up. My parents and I get along well, I think. I told my mom once that she is not only my mom but also my friend, and I meant it. I'm more open with them about a lot of things, and I guess mentally they've gone from being "My Parents: The Institution" to being actual people with actual feelings. And they know a bit more about me, too, especially now that they've both apparently taken to reading this site (Hi guys) without my having known about their patronage.
But regardless, I still don't feel like I can swear in front of them.
The Boy has learned a variety of quality swears from yours truly. His English is broken and limping, but he sure can say "Shit!" at appropriate moments. Like the first time I introduced him to my parents, warning him that swear words are known as such because they're slightly taboo. No matter, the first thing he said to them, in reference to the fact that there was at least a 20 minute wait for a table at the restaurant we wanted to go to, was "Oh shit."
They laughed as kind, giving parents would and I smiled and said, "I taught him that." Probably not true, I think Hollywood did (damn those R-rated movies again), but I doubt I helped matters any.
Other helpful expressions - vulgar or not - I have made familiar to him via frequent use around the house: Oh my God!, What the fuck?, Fuck off, That's bullshit, You're full of shit, Holy shit, whatever, what-the-fuck-ever, dickwad, asshole, jackass...
Bizarrely enough, I'm anti-swearing in French. My family had a German exchange student live with us for a year when I was 17. The two of us went to high school together. And every time she swore, I cringed. It just didn't sound right coming from a German mouth. If any of you have seen "Before Sunrise" (quality flick, uh-huh) and know of the excessive use of the word "fuck" by the Frenchie in the film, you might relate.
So I swear a lot in English instead. I'll chatter, chatter, chatter in French, and if a swear is needed, I say it in English. People always laugh at this the first time it happens, and then just let it slide after that. I suppose I sound more ridiculous doing that than just swearing in French, but...eh...I just can't bring myself to do it.
Plus, the French swearing vocabulary sucks. I've gone over this with a friend of mine, who speaks equally good French and swears equally as well in English.
Together, we have come to the conclusion that:
For words like dick, dickhead, dickwad, jerk, asshole, jackass, dumbass, dumbfuck, dork, idiot, stupid ass motherfucker, and so on, the French only seem to have one term: pauvre con. I keep describing the nuances between, say, a dickhead and a dumbass, but they just keep saying, "No, we woud zay zat as a pauvre con."
What about the girly end of the spectrum? Anything in English relating to promiscuity (always interesting how many words there are for asshole-like guys versus slutty girls...cultural reflection, I suppose) - ho, skank, skanky ho, crack ho, whore, slut, ho-bag, floozy - all just get reduced to the boring and uninventive pute.
I suppose I am really only hanging on to English for its expressive bad words. I just can't translate "He's one crazy-ass motherfucker but his chick is a skanky-ass ho" into French properly. It would turn into, roughly, "He's a crazy guy but his woman is a whore." Does that do the English version justice? Really, now.
While watching "8 Mile" (yet another impressive film, uh-huh), I noticed that no matter how creative the swearing might have been in the original English version, everything was always reduced to three key swear words in French: merde and all its offshoots, putain and its mini-rainbow of colors, and...well, shit, you know what? There are only two. And what's the big insult in French? Putain de merde. They couldn't even come up with The Mother of All Insults. They just think that using the two swears back-to-back suffices. I have issues with such slim pickin's in the swearing department at Frenchmart.
So I gotta clear the air here a little bit. I swear. A lot. In English. And I try to keep it tame when I am talking to my parents, but I'm not going to keep it tame on the web site.
So Mom and Dad - read at your own risk. I hope you both still love me.
cool story
umm....once i pooped!!!
wuts a french swear
all my friends speak portuguese..and they have all sorts of swears in that language. So i thought i'd brush up on my french with a few swears....lol... what the fuck..:-) might as well just say it in english.