Coarse Is as Coarse Does

Daily writing prompt

If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?

View all responses

I’m tired of casual swearing. Or more to the point, incessant swearing. More specifically, the ubiquitous use of the word f**k which I think is only impactful said under one’s breath at a particularly loathsome person or said loudly if one runs one’s snowblower over their foot or someone else’s foot, even worse.

I say this as a person who swears quite a bit but is trying to add more variety to her vocabulary. Swearing has been part of my storytelling, opinion writing, and kitchen conversations for decades. I even published a book of conversations between two dogs in which one of them swore emphatically and constantly, although it was during the First Time of Trump so there was plenty of surprising new dreadfulness to mock. Funny book, though. Impossible to replicate now because the dogs we have a pretty taciturn plus all the oomph has been taken out of most swear words. Trump’s surprises now defy efforts at humor by dogs or people.

I wouldn’t permanently ban the word f**k because we need it to address loathsomeness (exceptional, not the daily) and instances of great bodily harm. But perhaps a partial and not very serious ban could be placed on using f**k in political signs or political speech. Its ubiquity has made the word boring and tiresome. And coarse.

On the drive home from Madison this afternoon, I thought about my increasing disdain for speech and writing that is coarse which my phone’s dictionary defines as “lacking in refinement; crude or vulgar.” My mother used the word to describe people who didn’t wipe their feet or ate with their fingers, although I daresay she never in her life heard anyone say the word f**k much less read the word in print.

And she was probably better off for that deprivation. So might we all be.

_____________________________

Photo by Heather Mount on Unsplash