Bad words, best intentions

The Old Newbie Column

By Eric Kufs
Journal & Press

One night a few weeks back, while sitting on the couch in our den, my seven-year-old said her first “bad” word. What might be deemed a milestone was something short of momentous. It was family movie night, and during a random scene in an awful “Star Wars” sequel, she blurted out, “What the hell?!” My wife and I, astonished by the ease with which it slipped through her lips, looked at each other for one comedic beat and, in unison, shouted, “What did you say?!” Stern condemnation followed, with a vague explanation of why we don’t say that word. She was apologetic.

I might be a bit biased, but I find our daughter to be a good kid. She clearly didn’t know what she was saying. In fact, at some point later on that evening, she asked, “Mom, Dad, what does ‘hell’ mean?” I nodded at my wife, letting her know she could field this one. “Well, sweetie, some people say hell is a place where the devil lives and where bad people go when they die.” “Will I go there?” our daughter asked. My wife replied gently, “No babydoll, of course not.” I reaffirmed that sentiment with some soft words, all the while wishing I could tell her “hell” is just a word people made up hundreds of years ago to scare other people into acting certain ways.

Obviously, I didn’t say anything like that. But I did ask her where she heard the word. She said it was Braeden, a kid in her first-grade class. Of course it was Braeden who said it. It was always Braeden, or maybe Jayden, or Aiden… I can never remember. Anyway, in this brief moment during family movie night, I wasn’t going to be able to explain the abstract concept of eternal damnation, so I just said, “Well, whatever you do, don’t say that word in school, or you’ll get in trouble.”

You need to watch what you say in a small town like Greenwich, but apparently also how you say it. Since moving here three years ago, I’ve taken on several jobs within the community. One of them is substitute teaching at the high school. Recently, a fellow substitute told me how a principal in another district called him into the office to inform him he was being replaced by a different teacher because a student claimed they overheard him using a “bad word.” I was shocked in a way. The tenth graders, in their day-to-day interactions, had probably heard and used worse than anything my colleague could have uttered.

When I was a high school student, my mother often said to me, “Using swear words just shows your lack of vocabulary and a lack of intelligence.” I’d roll my eyes and retreat to my room to blast my favorite Red Hot Chili Peppers album where every other song was laden with “F” bombs.

In my twenties, my notions of “bad words” were fortified by grad school. Introductory linguistic courses covered how all languages evolved etymologically in cultures over centuries. Linguist John McWhorter writes in his book “Nine Nasty Words,” “Curses are words that have long ago ceased being themselves, having been vested with the power of transgression,” which is just the academic translation of the late comedian George Carlin’s thoughts on those “seven ‘dirty’ words you can’t say on TV”: “We give them power over us. They really, in themselves, have no power.” This is how I generally feel about these types of words. In the college classes I used to teach, they were just part of my broad vocabulary, used sparingly for emphasis or effect—that is, until I became the father of a first-grader in a small town.

I find myself getting angry at my wife, who tends to use “sh—” whenever she chips a nail, stubs a toe, burns herself on the stove, etc. Lately, she’s been citing studies by psychologists from England that link swearing with a reduced sensitivity to pain. Still, it is painful for me to think my daughter is sitting nearby soaking up such language. What if she starts teaching Braeden these words and we get a call from her teacher, or even more embarrassingly, from Braeden’s mom?

This new puritanical me is now showing up for other roles I play in Greenwich. When I teach spin cycling at the local YMCA, I feel obligated to provide a disclaimer before playing a new Cardi B single or a classic ’90s hip-hop track that uses explicit language. It feels necessary to prepare some older folks so as not to offend their unadulterated ears. I cringe inside as I pedal on the stationary bike, sweat pouring from my brow every time the word for a female dog blasts from the stereo speakers. Sometimes, I use my shouts of encouragement to cover the explicit parts of a song.

The epitome of this turn away from my younger objective self came on a recent visit to Wallie’s, that imperfect but sole option for a kid-friendly sit-down dinner on a Sunday night in the village. We always ask for a table under the stairs in the bar area, which still feels like what many of the original residents of Greenwich nostalgically describe as what Wallie’s used to be. Not far from us, seated at the bar with a bunch of folks who undoubtedly had kids of their own at home, was a big, burly, bearded man with a camouflage cap, holding court, loudly punctuating every single thought with an “f-ing” this or an “f-ing” that. I wanted to reach across our table and place my hands over my daughter’s ears or go find a pair of those protective muffs contractors wear when using power tools. It took a great deal of restraint not to get up and say something. The man continued swearing up a storm, letting the “Fs” fly even as more people began to arrive for dinner. My wife could see I was extremely uncomfortable. As we headed to the car, I said to her, “It just shows a lack of vocabulary, a lack of intelligence.” Driving home, I thought, damn it—I mean, gosh darn it, who have I become?

Eric Kufs is co-owner of Owl Pen Books, freelance writer, local teacher and musician. A Greenwich resident, he offers perspective as a transplant and relatively new member of the community.

---

And Now for the Comics … ‘College Edge’ by Sandra Mizumoto Posey

More tomorrow!