Bambi I am not.
25 Jan 2012 3 Comments
in And then I found 5 bucks, I am a stubborn asshole, This belongs in a "mommy blog"
You know what I don’t get about people that are anti-cussing? They’re still basically cussing, they’re just using different words to do it. And their argument about people that cuss not having imagination? Kind of moot. They ALL say “dang” or “darn”, “gosh” or “golly gee whiz”. Where is the imagination in that? Why don’t they say like… Flibbertygibbet? At the least, they could use ampersand or bleep. There are more inventive words out there, but there are words that are much more lame too.
When my step son was little, he would call me a dumb bitch. Now, I’m not denying that I am a dumb bitch, but no 3 year old child needs to say that, so my in laws decided to give him a replacement word before I murdered him in a terribly violent manner. Instead of letting him call me a dumb bitch, they encouraged him to call me Bambi. Bambi definitely sounds better in public, but I knew what he really meant, and I wasn’t any happier about it. He was still essentially saying something entirely inappropriate, and now I had two phrases to delete from his vocabulary, one of which was the title of a favorite movie of mine! Awesome.
It took many threats of doom and destruction, but I finally got my step son to stop calling me both Bambi AND dumb bitch, much to the dismay of my in laws, who seemed utterly unable to understand why I was protesting to his use of Bambi. As if it actually were something cute and innocent. Hmph. Bambi only sounded cleaner. In reality, it was paint over a stain, and a very thin coat of paint at that!
Anyway, I digress a little. My point here is, replacement words? Kinda stupid. And pointless. They really aren’t any less offensive if you think about it. I dunno. Maybe that’s just me.
What do you guys think? Replacement words: useful tools, or a ridiculous waste of breath?
Jan 25, 2012 @ 09:20:17
I think that profanities are only offensive because our society agrees they are. Otherwise, they are nonsense words. As for teaching children swap-outs, I think the whole idea is to teach children not to feel such vicious, ugly feelings that engender the use of such words. Not that feelings are bad, but maybe a little compassion to temper the urge to call someone a dumb bitch in all earnestness.
Jan 25, 2012 @ 09:45:02
In the case of my step son, I’m pretty sure he was only repeating something that had previously been said outside of my hearing, but every time he got upset with me he’d use it. It is hard to un-teach a child something!
And I whole heartedly agree about the nonsense words. People are offended by them because they have been taught to be, and because they choose to be. Somebody could decide that the word rainbow was the most offensive thing ever, but that would be their opinion only.
Jan 26, 2012 @ 09:46:42
How a person speaks and the words they use creates an image in the the minds of those around the speaker. The social concepts of those words are important. If you express your dislike for a group of people by saying, Fuck the fucking fuckers, you have expressed yourself, but you would have created an image of yourself that may not define you correctly. Not only the choice of words, but how they are used, correctly or incorrectly, whether (when written) those words are spelled correctly, or whether sentences are constructed properly, all make a significant impression about the speaker. We group people almost automatically by what they say and how they say it. Valley Girls. Hillbillies. Rednecks. Scientists. Boxers. Jocks. What is your first thought when reading those titles? The way they look or the way they speak? Either way, how they speak is in the top two thought processes.
Of course many words have ridiculous social taboos. That changes with time.
Choose your words carefully.