Joyously Obscene
September 23rd, 2009by Mary Richert
ANNAPOLIS, MD -
I learned to curse from the kids down the road. I don’t know where they learned it. Maybe they snuck into the living room late one night and watched Cinemax. Or maybe someone let them listen to that George Carlin bit (Carlin, of course, has become my cursing idol - what an appreciation for language that man has). They knew all the basics and a few interesting combinations. I didn’t know what “fuck” meant but understood it to be foul and taboo, so the combination “buttfuckers” struck me as joyously obscene. We were the kind of kids who integrated new words into our vocabulary by shouting them while jumping on the trampoline, leaping off the bed or bounding from one piece of furniture to another trying not to touch the floor — lava, obviously. If you had first encountered cursing in such a magnificent, joyful, wild atmosphere, you would love it, too. Few things entertain me more than the thought of my eight-year-old self in mid-air shouting “buttfuckers” with glee.
I love cursing the way I love beer. It is a guilty love, one that cannot possibly be good for me, one that concerns my mother a little. In high school, she heard me singing along with Ani DiFranco: “I may not be able to save the whole fucking world, but I can be the million that you never made.” Mom sighed. “I guess you and your friends all talk like that, don’t you?” I recently sent an invitation to a small sampling of my rather large Catholic family — only to the ones who already know i don’t go to church — inviting them to read my blog. It was another tentative step into the online world of self-promotion in which the line between enthusiasm and shamelessness is thinning by the day. The invitation included a suggestion that my family members could share the blog with anyone they know who might be interested, but it also came with a warning: “If you know anyone with a strong aversion to four-letter words, this may not be the kind of thing they’ll want to read.”
This e-mail lead to a conversation with my Mom in which I explained how I really do need to improve my vocabulary and she said how she loved Julie and Julia except for all the cursing, which she found not so much offensive as simply unnecessary and distracting. I could relate. I’m always talking about how writers have annoying and distracting habits that they seem to have been trying out for effect, but the effect just didn’t come out so well.
But I also believe cursing can be used to great effect, like the time my brother talked our mom and sister into a staged argument in the mall parking lot. My sister Katie, generally recognized as the polite one in the family, called shotgun as we all went to get in the car. My mother, more commonly known as the nicest lady ever born, voiced her objection.
Mom: No, I want to ride in the front.
Katie: But you always get to ride in front.
Mom: Fuck you, Katie.
Seriously, it was priceless. Just the briefest moment of shock passed until we all realized our mom would never use that word. John, who had orchestrated the scene, couldn’t contain his smile. Mom has probably blocked it out, but to me it was completely unforgettable.
Cursing does a lot for me, actually. There are those who call it cheap, low class, anti-intellectual, a sign of a weak mind, a foul temper and a lacking vocabulary. All these things are true, of course. But sometimes, my mind is weak, my temper foul, and my vocabulary lacking — there’s no getting around it — I run out of words sometimes.
In college, I took a women’s self-defense class for credit. I was OK at sparring. I learned the moves and did the exercises, even lost a couple pounds. Found out I could hit pretty hard, too. For the final exam, we had to fend off an attacker (a former cop or something, a man paid to show up in padding and a cup and threaten us). I was terrified. I had stage fright, for one thing. I knew I could hold my own against a classmate; I’d even given my friend a bloody lip by accident one time. But I was afraid of the pressure of not getting mugged (or raped or killed) in front of the whole class. I was afraid I couldn’t let fly witht he fists on a total stranger. Our teacher had instructed us to keep shouting “no” at the attacker as we fought him, and being raised in the polite tradition of “yes,” I was afraid I couldn’t raise my voice against him.
When my turn came, we stood in the center of the room, encircled by my classmates, acting convincingly like total strangers until he said, “Hey lady, can I play with your titties?” No kidding. Fucker gets paid to say this shit. I was shocked, but the adrenaline rushed in like a title wave as I shouted, “Fuck no!”
My classmates laughed a little. We were all surprised by my voice, considering I’d been labeled as “the nice one” by our teacher. The attacker grabbed my arm, and then I fought him. I fought him like hell, and I didn’t care anymore if he had a cup on. My classmates were chanting, “No! No! No!” with every punch, and I was going to ruin his day. Ruin his life. Ruin his family tree. After class, he took off his protective gear and we all talked for a few minutes. He was a nice guy, in his 50s, a grandfather, but still terribly fit. He was harmless after all, and he’d been there to help us learn our own strength. He helped me find my own voice, that’s for sure. And as vulgar as anyone may think it is, I know exactly what I’ll say if a real attacker ever tries to touch me.
What I told Mom was that when you’re trying to hang with geniuses, professional journalists, people with PhDs and book contracts and all you’ve got going for yourself is a spunky attitude and a foul mouth, it leaves something to be desired. It can make you feel pretty ignorant. And yet, there’s something satisfying about being a high school girl and using the word “cunt” to unsettle boys who’d never seen one. Truthfully, after exchanging e-mails with certain very literate friends, I do hit dictionary.com pretty hard, but let us never underestimate the power of a well-placed “fuck.”
Tags: books, Childhood, cursing, Family, fighting, Language, mom, self-defense, vocabulary, Writing
for me, it was the “lava” that was particularly well-placed. very funny stuff, mary richert.
Thank you.
Cursing is so powerful. A well-placed “fuck” is never a bad thing and I salute your embrace of the art-form.
*bow* Thanks. My mom still wishes I’d clean it up a bit, I’m sure. I really do want to learn more intelligent ways to offend… My genius friends are always saying really incredible high brow stuff that makes me look dumb in comparison. I wanna be able to do that… with a good side helping of swear.
How true. I’ve always been a fan of “milibitch” as a measure of distance. Better yet, I read this article a while back about how cursing actually provides pain relief (big shock). http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/cursing-and-pain-relief/
Perhaps it’s cliche’ to say but, you had me at buttfuckers.
This is true love.
There’s certainly no better feeling in the world than a “well-placed fuck.”
indeed.
I love that exchange with your Mom.
I also love it when people who aren’t practiced cursers get angry and give it a shot. My favorite, from 40-ish woman who lost her temper:
“Fuck you . . you fucking . . . fucker!”
The anger was more effective than the words.
I remember using “pissed off” in school, and using it properly, but somehow having missed that it was not OK to use that expression in the classroom.
I have a vivid memory of the day *after* I learned to curse, actually. The kids who taught it to me apparently got caught saying dirty words, so the next day, we’re playing together, and I’m cursing up a storm thinking it’s cool, and they’re like “Don’t say that! That’s a bad word!” I remember walking home mumbling to myself something along the lines of your 40-ish angry lady. “Fuck you, you stupid… butthead.”
HA!
Once, when I was in the early stages of dating someone, I showed him a short story I’d written and apologised that there was a lot of talk about peeing. Not lewd, pervy peeing, mind you. But, things like vagrants pissing against hotel-fronts and so on, and the suggestion that to stake my claim on a motelroom, perhaps I ought to pee in the corners.
He told me I ought to include “more peeing, not less”, and when I countered that I swear too much and it makes me seem unladylike and stupid, he assured me that no, I ought to not only talk about more pee, but also swear more frequently. I thought he was just trying to sweet-talk me.
I feel more or less self-conscious about how much (and with what words) I swear. Like, if I am feeling a bit “bleh” about my life and its overall state, or have recently been dumped by some dude I really liked, I’ll get all concerned about the fact that I say fuck or cunt too much (which, admittedly, I don’t *really* say too much), and should try to be more nice or polite. Conversely, when I feel like the world is an oyster in my palm, when I’m feeling awesome and fantastic and super-smart, I’ll tell myself, “yeah, you’re all that in one tidy package, PLUS you really know how to swear! Well played!”
Oh, swearing…so complicated!
Oh dear, it’s a little spooky how much we have that in common. Cursing can be a blessing or a … curse *ba-dum-ching!*
Man, that reminds me of how for a while in high school I was always making absurd puns that made everyone laugh kindof uncomfortably. It was pretty awesome.
I do a bit of a pendulum-swing between “base” humour like saying buttfuckers, and “nerdy” humour like awesome puns and clever turns of phrase and generally zinging come-backs that go right over people’s heads and leave them wondering if perhaps I have a problem, or am a little bit retarded.
: )
Carlin is glorious, as is the word “buttfuckers.” Very funny post, very well-written.
My first curse word, I’ve been told, was when at the tender age of 2, I was in the car with my dad and he had to brake suddenly. A beat after he came to a screeching stop, he heard my tiny voice in the backseat say: “Asshole.”
He turned around, incredulous, to see his cherubic daughter smiling at him. “Annie, what did you just say?”
I smiled again. “Asshole. Mommy says it.”
And the rest, as they say, is fucking history.
hahah priceless! I love how many great family stories revolve around small children cursing. How can these be “bad” words when they’re so … cute?
Not many comments make me laugh out loud. This one did.
agreed!
Seriously, one of my favourite things in life is the well-placed profanity.
Here is the story of how I learned my favourite curse:
I was working at a bar with a guy named Brad. Brad and I got along well and one day, as it was quiet, we took to spraying each other with the soda-dispensing guns. Nothing sticky; just soda water (sparkling water, I think you guys call it). Brad, however, upped the ante by secretly filling a beer glass with water and dumping it down the back of my neck while I wasn’t looking.
So I took one of the big plastic tubs that sat under the ice chests to catch the melting ice; the water in those things is somewhere just above the zero degree mark (Celsius, of course). I hefted it, snuck around the bar, and tipped the whole damn thing over his shirt front.
Brad’s reaction was immediate. Suddenly drenched, he shouted out: ‘Motherless fuck!’
It was so perfect.
Motherless! That is, like, ADVANCED cursing there. I have so far to go. So much to learn.
Mary, Simon, et al…I sit at your feet.
Simon: That is fairly genius. My favorite method of inventing curses is to take one household item or very common word (spatula is always good) and one curse word (fuck being a favorite). “Spatula fuck!” There you go.
Erika, hah thanks.