Matt's Blog

Ok, so before I added the link to the fake Choose Your Own Adventure books to my weekly links, I didn't look at them all. I looked at a few, thought they were politically incorrect, a bit crass, but funny, mostly because I used to read those books. (Can nostalgia make something more funny?) Anyway, apparently there are some there that are pretty bad, bad in that they use dirty words, you know, the really dirty words. And it bothered me some that people might be offended.

So I thought, well, maybe I'd better add a warning or something (warning, you'll see dirty words if you click that link). Then I thought, or just remove the link. But that bugged me a bit. I mean, what are we talking about here, naughty talk. Not hurtful or mean or dangerous talk, just socially unacceptable talk. I can bump my knee and say, "oh bother" anywhere, "oh crap" in most public places, "oh damn" among most friends and family, but "oh s--- (or oh f---)" don't play as well most places I spend my time. But "oh s---" means the same thing as "oh bother". And I can tell my son, or he can tell me, "look out for that dog poop." But if he (or I) say, "look out for that dog s---," somehow our morality is corrupted. So it's clearly not that talking about crap is bad, just using the wrong word for crap is bad.

Right now the words that Mare and I battle in our home, are not "dirty" words, but mean words-- stupid, dummy, baby, bug off (sounds just as ugly as the other off-combination the way the little girl says it). I know why we don't allow these words. They really aren't nice. They hurt people. In a year or two, when we are battling other words (and the kids begin questioning why, why, why) I may be at a bit more of a loss as to why these words "aren't nice." Although I suppose, "You're grandmother will kill you if she hears you say that," is a pretty good reason to clean it up.

My rant here has no real direction, obviously. If anyone can lend any clarity to the issue, or wants to muddy the waters, feel free to comment. But please, keep it clean.