Bud Hennekes recently posted about his intention to eliminate curses from his vocabulary, for which he has announced that he will hold a “30 day trial” and invites other people to join him.
I didn’t exactly get if such trial intends to be an isolated experiment (“I quit cursing for one month, see how it feels, and then, older and wiser, return to home, shit home”), or a “launchpad” (“I’m going to get rid of cursing once and for all, 30 days is the deadline”), but, in any case, the post stirred up some memories in me of the time when I held my own private war against cursing. It was about my mid-twenties and, as far as I remember, it did not take me very long, once I was convinced of the reasons to do so. Here are some:
- Curses are, very often, a sign of mental laziness: “this is a pretty fucked up situation” (from this point, pardon my language) gives you a very limited scope of a problem. Just a bit more of mental momentum could have generated something like “we have a problem of egos here” or “I feel disappointed”, which are more descriptive and push the ball ahead. Another example: when you say that this or that is “a … shit”, the word “shit” can usually be substituted by thousands of other words which add more content of some kind. Many people take shelter in curses to avoid a deeper acknowledgement of situations, sensations, etc…
- They are childish: ad nauseam repetition has turned curses into clichés, empty terms that only express a basic very low quality emotional message. And if we put them under the magnifying glass, what do we see: most of them are referred to physiological functions. A typical feature of children is their obsession by physiological functions. In addition, they are always physiological functions considered “dark” and “dirty” by a system of thought that should have died centuries ago. (Btw, in Spanish the etymology of curses is even more scary and disgusting than in other languages, and it deserves a separate post. I’ll write it once this one reaches 154 comments).
- They induce lack of self control: as a consequence of all of the above, when curses become a “facility”, one gets addicted to them. And, in case conflict arises, they boost a complex chain of conditioned responses at the end of which is violence. Can you imagine something more repelling than two guys yelling at each other curses instead of arguments? The punch is only one step away. And a very short one.
- Amount reduces effectiveness: I am not defending here to completely quit curses. Poison, as usual, is in the dose. Just like with the economic laws, the excess of a product always reduces its value. If you produce 6,578 “fucks” every day, you’ll hardly impress anybody with them. But if you keep those words for very particular moments, they’ll be like an H bomb. I still remember a certain “bollocks” that sprang once from the bottom of my soul, the shock in everybody to hear it from a guy “who never usually cursed”. Curses are just another function of human language, another prove of its power, there is nothing to be afraid of. But make sure that they are your servants, not the other way.
So I want to congratulate Bud and anybody who joins him for making that effort. I don’t think it is a frivolous thing. Our attention span is limited, and behind every word there is always a concept. Let’s make sure that we choose the high quality ones.
Have you been through a personal struggle of the kind? Are you through a similar trial? Are you comfortable with curses? Is shit in your breakfast, lunch and dinner? Do you think curses must be forbidden under any circumstance?
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Hey Zerebria thanks for the pingback. Interesting article my friend.
You’re welcome Bud. Thanks for your blog, too. I hope your 30 days trial is going ahead like a charm.