Look, the title has been a little misleading from the beginning. Pretty much every 'Person That I Can't Hang Out With' is based on somebody that I actually do hang out with. I'm not trying to be a hypocrite, it's just that the real title of these posts should be: 'Things That People Do That Kind of Annoy Me, But Not Really. They're More Like Foibles. I Could Still, Realistically, Hang Out With Them In Spite of This, and Often Do.' Not quite as catchy, right? So, if you happen to be reading one of these, thinking to yourself "Hmm, there's something about this that I can't quite put my finger on… wait! He's talking about me!" Chances are, you're right. I probably am. I'm not trying to end our friendship over the internet or anything. I swear.
I swear.
No, really, I swear. As in, use profanity. I try to avoid doing so in mixed company, when it might offend someone, or be considered rude (assuming being rude isn't the point), but most of the time I don't give it much thought. They're just words. And like every other word, they're at my disposal as part of the English language.
Now, I don't have any problem with people that don't swear. In fact, I kind of respect it. Words only have as much power as you give them, so really, I've taken away almost all of the power/impact that those words might wield, simply by being so flippant in my usage of them. I mean, if you tell 30 people every single day that you love them (including the barista at Starbucks when she gets your Double Tall, Low Fat, Extra Carmel, Frappé Mocha Cappuccino just right), then the word 'love' has lost a lot of it's impact. Even if you sit across from a girl, take her hand in yours, gaze longingly into her eyes and whisper: "I love you," it still means less if you've said it to 80 different girls over the years. It's not completely meaningless, but at the very least, it means a little less than it would if you had never said it to a girl before in your life, right?
So, while I respect people that refrain from swearing, I'm especially envious of those that will use the occasional curse word in a moment of genuine anger/frustration/fear. I mean, if a person that has never dropped an F-Bomb in their life, glares at you with clenched fists at their sides and snarls "Go fuck yourself", that can send a chill right down your spine. You know that they're more angry or hurt than they've ever been, and you know that you've truly done something wrong. More-so than if your jerk-off buddy from college says it to you five times a day - regardless of whether you asked to borrow a pen, tried to steal a french fry off his plate, or got his sister pregnant.
In recent years I've made a fairly conscious effort to be more selective with my use of profanity. Perhaps I'm older and wiser, or maybe it's a concerted effort to gain these words back some of their lost impact. That said, I'll admit, a few drinks always ruins my resolve, and soon the expletives are flowing as freely as the beer that rendered me in such a state. All my good work undone. All impact I've tried to regain, lost.
And really, that's what this post is about: the impact and effectiveness of such words. You see, as much as I respect (or at the very least, don't look down my nose at) those that choose to refrain from the use of profanity, there is a close cousin to this sort of person that I don't abide. A person that, dare I say, I can't hang out with: The Faux Swearer.
Shoot. Heck. Frick. You know the words. Neutered versions of swears that almost sound like them, but are technically just different enough to not actually be swears. I'm not sure if I can even properly explain what I have against this. It's sort of like, 'look, this is where a person would normally swear, but because I don't swear, I'm going to-sort-of-swear here, but it's technically not a swear, so I didn't swear. Ok?' And I don't know. I guess it's just like, why bother? Why go to all this work to avoid doing something, when really you're basically still doing it?
To me it sort of feels like a person saying "I would never ride a motorcycle, they're too dangerous, and I would never risk my safety like that." And then two days later you see them drive past on something that looks exactly like a motorcycle, and shout "Hey, I thought you said…" to which they interrupt "It's not a motorcycle! The guy that sold it to me said it was a motorized bicycle." Well, to me, that doesn't change the fact that you said a motorcycle was dangerous, and just because what you're riding isn't technically a motorcycle, that doesn't magically make it any less dangerous than one. If you don't swear, good on you, don't swear. But let's knock it off with this technicality nonsense. Just because you're not saying the words, doesn't mean your intention behind them is any different
Let's go back to the whole 'love' example. If a guy loves a girl, he wants to let her know, and he wants it to be a special moment, so he says "I love you." He doesn't say "I lurve you." It doesn't change the meaning behind the words either way, it doesn't change the amount that he loves her in his heart. But it does ruin the way in which he tried to express his feelings to her. And that to me this the difference between 'shit' and 'shoot'. You can say 'frick' in school, but at the end of the day, I would rather hear a kid say 'Aw man, more fucking homework?' than 'I hope you go home tonight and fricking choke on a gun and pull the trigger.' Sure, you'd prefer the first kid not swear at all, but I think everyone can agree that the second kid said something far worse. If you were entering the data into a cold, emotionless computer program, it would tell you the first one was the more offensive sentence, because technically speaking 'fucking' is a worse word that 'fricking'. And that's my point. It's not the words themselves that matter as much as the meaning/intentions behind them.
And sure, maybe some moments in life simply don't call for full on profanity. I'll admit, I do have a fondness for 'heck'. I don't really know why. I have no problem saying 'hell', but in some instances I prefer the use of 'heck'. In a sort of 'flip convention on it's ear' kind of way. For example. if you ask me if I want to go to a movie, I'll probably respond "Heck yes, I do!" It's sort of a false-excitement thing. I'm basically pretending to be more excited than the situation actually calls for. And I think the use of 'heck' in that instance, rather than 'hell' helps drive that playfulness of the language home. Plus, 'hells yeah' is a little too frat boy, and over-used for my liking.
Look, I'm not saying that F-Bombs should be used on television or that kids should have free range to say them in schools, that's not my point. In fact, I got a great thrill from the use of 'frak' in Battlestar Galactica, and 'cuss' in The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Real swears wouldn't have been nearly as fun, and in the case of Mr. Fox, would have seemed grossly out of place. In fact, I kind of prefer when swears get beeped on TV. It almost has more impact. On South Park and Family Guy they don't shy away from swearing, they just simply beep it out. But when you buy the DVD box sets, they're not beeped out at all. And honestly, it loses almost all of it's impact. I barely notice the real swears, but the beeps during a broadcast draws my attention to it every time.
But I digress, basically, my point is: I can easily forgive the occasional 'shoot' or 'frigg' for the exact reasons that I just mentioned. If a situation doesn't call for full profanity, but could still use an extra adjective or two, by all means, sprinkle in a couple of faux swears. If this was simply the case, I wouldn't have my panties in such a bunch, and I wouldn't feel the need to be writing this post right now. However, there is another use of the faux swear that irks me every time, and makes this post more than necessary. I'm referring to a formally established expression, or proper title, that may contain profanity, but has been replaced with a faux swear. It would be like if someone said "Aw man, I just stepped in dog shoot." Now, as established, I don't mind if the person says 'dog crap', that's fine. But the use of 'shoot' makes no sense and falls more into that 'look, I want you to do the math and go 'shoot? oh, he means 'shit', but I'm still taking a moral stance against actually saying the word, so I'm replacing it with it's facsimile, even though it doesn't make sense in the context of the sentence.'
"Shoot happens"? "Crap Happens"? No, "Shit Happens." That's the expression. If you don't want to use it, fine, But don't bastardize it. I mean, you can see how that might frustrate, right? I'll give you a recent example, one from a real conversation, with a real person (that I'm trying really hard not to completely offend as he reads this):
"Yeesh, new Jackbutt movie did 50 mill."
Jackbutt? Really? I mean, not to be a dick, but when I first read that, it took me an honest 37 seconds to figure out what he was even talking about. Granted, I can be a little slow from time to time, but still. When it finally dawned on me, it was like a revelation. "Oh! He means Jackass…" And by that point I was more caught up with the use of 'Jackbutt' than I was with the actual point of the statement: to start a discussion about how much money the movie had made, and if it was worthy of doing so. And I think this is the epitome of what I'm trying to say. The word itself isn't offensive. It's just a word. In fact, one of the great joys we had in childhood was the fact that an ass (as in, a donkey) wasn't a swear. And if we could find a creative reason to have to refer to the animal as an ass, then we were allowed to do so. We could care less about donkeys, but we loved talking about them because it was like we were getting away with something. And in a way, we were. But only because the word 'ass' has more than one meaning. One is a swear, one is not.
In the case of the movie title Jackass, it's not. So the refusal to say the actual, proper name, is more of a stubborn misguided attempt to prove that you never use any swear words, than it is you actually avoiding saying a swear word. It would be like if you knew a guy named Roger Shittlenicky, but you called him Mr. Shootlenicky. That would be ridiculous, right? Shittlenicky is not a swear, even though it forces you to pronounce the syllable 'shit' over the course of saying it. And that's why 'Jackbutt' seems so ridiculous to me too.
But maybe Jackass is a bad example. Let's say you wanted to discuss the movie Young People Fucking. Now you have a legitimate dilemma, since this is a proper title, and as I've discussed, it's poor form to change the formal title of something. But, it also contains the very real use of profanity as well. Profanity which I am more than fine with you taking issue against saying. I don't know, I don't have all the answers. I'd probably be fine with you saying 'Young People Effing' and I don't know why this is different than 'Jackbutt', but somehow it is.
And I guess that brings us to a big one. What about the dreaded N-Word? Here I am preaching the power and meaning of a word, and yet I would hesitate to ever say it. In fact, I'm obviously reluctant to even type it. And I'm not a racist person. I can't fathom a situation where I would say that word in a hateful or malicious way, and yet, even knowing in my heart of hearts that I mean nothing by it, I still won't say it. I mean, what if I'm just reading a quote in which someone says it? What if I'm listening to a rap album, and simply singing along as the N-Bombs fly? It's just a word. It only has as much power as the intention behind it when it's said, and yet I still can't do it. Why not? Right now people don't know what to do about the Kanye West / Jay-Z song "Ni**as in Paris". It's the song's proper title, so if it lands in the top 10 on the Billboard 100, how does one (and by one, I mean 'white people') refer to it? It's a proper name, just like Mr. Shittlenicky, so people should just say it, right? Well, I could try to argue either way, but in three and a half minutes of some of the greatest television ever produced, Dave Chapelle sums it up perfectly.
(Maybe don't watch this at work with the speakers turned up… do it at home, or with headphones on. You've been warned.)
Perhaps not the funniest, or most iconic of Chapelle's sketches, but I can't think of a better way to convey my point than that. Grantland's Rembert Browne described it best in his brilliant March Madness style bracket to pick the best Chapelle Show sketch of all time:
"…it's cripplingly uncomfortable and hilarious. Watching and hearing white people say "Niggar" over and over again, in the masterful context that Chappelle set up, is still jarring, even when you've seen the sketch hundreds of times and know when it's coming."
And that's the point. By all intents and purposes, in that context - a context which I've spent the majority of this post arguing in favour of - the use of the N-Word should be fine. But it's not.
So, I don't know, maybe that does make me a hypocrite. If I only care about the intention of a word, the context in which it's used, but still consider some words taboo, regardless of their context or intention, perhaps I am just being completely sanctimonious in my judgement of people that are unwilling to use words that they consider to be off limits. If I'm not willing to use certain words, then why shouldn't they be able to make the same choice?
But seriously, Jackbutt? The line has to be drawn somewhere. And that's why, Mr. Faux Swearer, you have this one thing that kind of annoys me, but not really. It's more like a foible. I can still, realistically, hang out with you in spite of this, and often do.
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