I’m sure you have noticed how words we have always known to be off-color have made their way into prime time television. While this has been happening more and more in the electronic media, it has been kept out of the newspaper end of the media, for the most part.
A viewer no longer has to wait until after 9 p.m. to hear in direct terms words describing bodily functions. One needs only to wait for former after-prime-time programs to appear on reruns any time of day.
One four-letter word is very prevalent in preteen, and above, age ranges. I believe most seniors find the public use of these words disgusting, even gross.
However, in some cases the practice of using this function can be a tension reliever, prompt smiles, snickers, even laughter and create a bonding of mutual lovers of the indiscreet.
Actually, there are two of these relievers that when allowed to become audible are, or have always been, totally antisocial, disruptive, offensive and a reputation negative.
That is until now. The youths have brought burping and flatulence into everyday, public exposure.
It’s hunting camp humor brought to the classroom, family room and dinner table.
To most of us, I think, it’s a totally wrong trend. Keep bedroom talk in the bedroom, and toilet talk and noises away from classrooms, etc.
Well, I ain’t going to stop it. So, we might as well get into it. I remember walking by the radio room of our ship while crossing the Pacific in ?44 and observing the crew leaning back in their chairs with their feet resting on the radio table.
Believe me, they were not sending signals to Tokyo Rose, though that might have been what they would have told their commanding officer had he asked.
They were laughing and betting on loudness, odor and time lapse.
Then there is the ‘pull my finger? trick practiced for generations by grandfathers and uncles the world over. That phrase has been used on television since the pre-Archie Bunkner days.
And, so the steps began. We’ve gone from the finger pull to open flatulence.
When a friend of ours heard an air burst from his daughter he reminded her, ‘In all our 50 years of marriage neither of us have heard the other so expound!?
Then came my talk with a high schooler and teacher. ‘You should hear the others,? came the defensive response from the teen.
Doesn’t that prompt a question like, ‘If they tried dope, would you?? No, I’m not going to ask somebody else’s children that.
A middle-school teacher acknowledged the flatulence in the classroom as temporary disruption, but that after a laugh and her instructions, her students went back to work.
Seems to me that’s not the way it is in a competitive America. Why wouldn’t some classmate try to go for the blue ribbon? Go for louder laughs? Try to exceed the teacher’s current boundaries?
I regularly read several columnist. The Detroit News started one some years ago (I won’t say her name, but . . .) in her first one she said she learned in college that vegetarian flatulence is different from non-vegetarian. I’ve read her no more.
So, I understand if you stop reading me.
Back to our ship’s radio room. As I watched the leaning communicators, I noticed they almost took turns lighting matches to their releases.
So, recalling this, I asked the middle school teacher if her students lit their gases.
‘No,? she said in defense of her youths, ‘They don’t do that until high school.?