May 26, 2008
Foul Language Crusader Has Bar of Soap for NYC
Jim O'Connor, the author of a book titled Cuss Control, visited New York last week in an effort to educate people on how they can curb their cursing.
O'Connor is not a complete scold--his book states that its purpose is to simply reduce swearing to situations that actually call for it, like when you hit your thumb with a hammer. In NYC, perhaps that situation would be more like when you accidentally bump into a stroller-pushing dad who then uses a boxcutter on you.
A Daily News reporter followed O'Connor to the most likely situation to be greeted with swear words--chatting up complete strangers on the NYC subway during rush hour.
"Do you swear?" O'Connor asked one commuter as he squeezed into a car on the L train at Eighth Ave.O'Connor feels that swearing is simply linguistic laziness and its overuse is based on unwarranted hostility between people, "You have to try to think this guy did not bang into you intentionally, you just happened to be in the way." The author is from Illinois, and may be unaware many New Yorkers are banging into you intentionally, because they are inconsiderate, rude, and confrontational, i.e."Umm ... yeah," he replied warily. "And I'm surprised people are not swearing at you now - you're blocking the door."
Here is O'Connor's website. It's unclear what he thinks of Sue Simmons' on-air f-bomb.
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what's the replacement for cocksucking douchebag faggot asshole?
The guy has a point. Everybody dropping the S-, A- and F-bombs every day has made those words almost meaningless. As he suggests, I use them only when the occasion demands. There are so many other perfectly adequate words that are underused. Drat, darn, screw it, to heck with it, baloney, hogwash, horsefeathers, jerk, fool, cretin, nitwit, knucklehead, boor, barbarian, phillistine, pig, the list goes on and on. The worst offenders are uneducated people in the hood, who can't seem to go one minute without using at least one of the big three cuss words.
CUNT. Oops, I meant to say "Jim O'Conner".
I feel that Bolshevik is more offensive to way more levels than bullshit...
You can convert George Carlin's famous Seven Dirty Words to clean equivalents:
Intercourse
Urine
Excrement
Vagina
Fellatio
Incest
Breasts
I like:
F-Word -
Frak (Battlestar Galactica), Farg (Johnny Dangerously - as in, "fargin' iceholes"), Flip(ping), Freaking, God-forsaken, Poughkeepsie, Frammin'
A-Word -
Jackal, Turkey, Cretin, Dunce, Nincompoop, Arse (does that count?), Dullard, Troll (although this is best preceded by the F-word, IMO), douchebag, Philistine, knuckle dragger, jerk, knave, etc.
S-Word -
Dadgummit (actually, better substitute for GD, but still...), Shucks, Sherbet, Shoot, Merde (with an American accent), Ham-fisted (as in, "that's a really ham-fisted way to go about making a point"), underwhelming, crappy, dunder-headed, etc.
Spirit of 76, I presume that you mean Bay Ridge, when you refer to the "hood."
Spiritof 76.
Your choice of words "Drat, darn, screw it, to heck with it, baloney, hogwash, horsefeathers, jerk, fool, cretin, nitwit, knucklehead, boor, barbarian, phillistine, pig, the list goes on and on" are fine for those that were in school in the mid twentieth century. Unfortunately most people today think those words "suck." Are you Kool with that? Are you groovie?
I believe Philistine is spelled with only one "L".
Popular slang is so boring. The combination of those "secretive" verbs, adverbs, nouns, and adjectives get so dated, so soon, it's laughable. It's kiddie language.
Can you dig it?
i just got bungled in the gargoyle.
Anyone I hear using these "replacement" words will get a slap from me.
Splicer, Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot? Fudge man! OMG LOL! *giggles like a teenager* *texts friend on T-Mobile Sidekick*
The whole point of swearing is to say something offensive. These words aren't offensive.
If Jim O'Connor wanted to improve people's vocabulary, he should be making up new, more offensive curse words. Suggestions?
I wish Conan O'Brien's attempted popularizing of "krunk" had caught on.
Fuck him! :-)
I don't like gargoyles. : [
They give me nightmares.
Ah, the ever amusing (not!) Snoopy.
Ask me if I care whether I can curse kewl. I'm not trying to impress anyone, least of all uneducated kiddies who think it's kewl to use vulgar language in polite society.
As for philistine, I guess you've never had keyboard bounce, eh? And unless you're from Philistia, it's lower case.
The whole point of swearing is to say something offensive. These words aren't offensive.
So you want to offend people every other minute? His whole point is not that you can't use those words at all, but you should reserve them for when they're appropriate. If you say "shit" for every little thing that annoys you, that takes away its shock value, which runs counter to the purpose you're giving. If you say it all the time, what do you have left when you really need to show anger? People who know me well know that if I say "fuck this shit" even softly, they should leave the room quickly because I don't use language like that unless I'm really pissed -- not annoyed, not steamed, not peeved, not ticked.
Good swearing is an art, a kind of folk poetry, containing elements of both tradition and creativity. The greatest practitioners I have run into have been old Army NCOs from the South. "Son of a one-eyed, yellow, bald, bow-legged bitch!" That sort of thing. Unfortunately the pace of city life doesn't give one much time for lengthy verbal excursions.
I just love popping Spirit's cherry. Such a fine individual. NOT!
Starrygordon, perhaps you don't recall an infamous scene from "Do the Right Thing." There was a classic case of long-winded cursing in the city.
Actually in New York -- I'm not sure about other places -- "asshole" is replaced by security guards, doormen, etc. as "sir", as in:
"Sir, can I help you?"
Translated, this means:
"Asshole, get away from there!"
www.forgotten-ny.com
This is about the dumbest thing I've read in a week.
Wouldn't calling someone a Philistine, in a derogatory way, be a slur?
i have to agree with Spiritof76 on this. i hardly ever swear, but when i let loose & curse, my friends snap to attention because they know i mean it.
Swear word replacements don't really solve the problem of the lazy speaker, because they have the same meaning as the actual swear words themselves. Just stay cool until you really need to blow the steam. And sometimes nothing compares to an icy stare.
I like the Farscape curses:
Frell, Hezmana, Yotz...
it smells like hemorrhoids in here
this is so stupid.. words are only as bad as you want to believe they are. fucking stupid.