What triggered my liver was a street reporter in Detroit using a word that has become all too common when referring to how angry someone is.
A man had become so upset that he shot another. The reporter said he was, ‘P—-d off!? If I’d had a rerun button I’d have played that over and over to try to convince myself it wasn’t said.
But, considering how often this word is used in sit-coms, comedy programs and general conversations I’m not doubting I heard it right.
Recently, columnist George Will wrote: ‘Many people have no notion of propriety when in the presence of other people, because they are not actually in the presence of other people, even when they are in public.?
His reference is to people being oblivious to others when chatting on cell phones and using i-pods.
This not-for-public expression has replaced irate, angry, incensed, displeased, maddened, provoked, inflamed, piqued, wrathful, resentful, enraged, furious and hot as descriptions for persons losing their temper.
Any one of these words is extremely more acceptable in public than the one describing a body function.
The use of this expression is minimally upsetting when compared to other behaviors being reported nearly daily. Students having sex in schools during class, public nakedness, using railroader language (my railroading Daddy knew them all) in cafe conversations and other antisocial behavior seems to be connected to our moral and social decay.
Only those using it don’t seem to know or care about moral and social conversation. Perhaps that’s because it was never practiced in the home and certainly not insisted upon.
I’m not better-than-thou. I’m one of the saved. I’m not pious or saintly. I’ve spoken all the words Mother used to call naughty. Just as I was taught then, and I believe now, they should not be spoken in front of women, and they should not become accepted general conversation words.
Besides being distasteful, their use shows a lack of respect for others. It is an entitlement mentality that has expanded the usage.
There is a hair-trigger sensitivity ensuing out there. People are believing if they think it, they can say it. ‘It’s among the rights outlined in the Constitution,? some will tell you.
As in everything, there’s a poll about this maybe being the Age of Profanity.
Seventy-four percent of Americans questioned said they encounter profanity in public frequently or occasionally, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll.
Two-thirds said they think people swear more than they did 20 years ago, and a whopping 64 percent said they use the F-word from several times a day to a few times a year.
Women use that word fewer times than men, but still 23 percent say it at least a few times a week.
I vividly remember the F-word coming out of my mouth in just a general conversation with Hazel. Her head snapped. Her eyes glared. I shrunk, hoping to disappear.
That word, as many others, if they have to be used, should remain in stag camps in deep woods. When said by a woman they project an image none should be pleased with.
The P– word is only a little less of an image provoker.