Puh-lease, not that old excuse again
I am sooooooooo tired of illiterate Lame-ohs who use the Constitution to defend their lack of vocabulary (i.e. "it's my right to curse) and inability to use the English language. I mean really, there's so many layers of words with varying degrees of meaning in our language. Take for instance "pissed". Instead of pissed, you could be angry, exasperated, irked, irritated, aggravated, displeased, livid, enraged, incensed, infuriated, irate, wrathful, and any other number of things that are more descriptive than "pissed", which in the UK also happens to mean "drunk".
Why am I piqued by this? Today on the bus, some kid strutted on all brash and cocky. Moving his mouth. He was scoping out all the girls and gave a verbal commentary on several. He sat down right behind me and was having a conversation with his friend. I don't remember what it was about but he used the F*** word and a man in his 30s turned around and asked him to have some consideration and watch his mouth.
Predictably, the kid said that the man couldn't tell him what to do or say and that the Constitution protected his right to use the F word (unfortunately, this is not the first time I've heard this excuse), yada, yada, yada. He then proceeded to "dis" the guy until the man got off at the next stop telling the bus driver "if you're gonna let that a**hole stay on then I want off."
Again, predictably, the kid started bragging to his friend and then a new friend. "If this was downtown, everybody would have been laughing."
I couldn't stand his attitude any longer so I turned around and said, "For us to laugh, it would have had to have been funny."
I don't remember what he said, something about "get off my back" and certainly something else.
Then I told him something to the effect of: "The Constitution defends language for those who know how to use the English language, not those who want to use the F*** word. ... Go study your dictionary. ..."
Then I asked him if that man's opinion and desire to not listen to his language was protected under the Constitution. I wish I could remember how he responded to that.
He called me a witch and that he'd pop me (accompanying hand motion....yada, yada, yada. I admit to using the word "a**h***".
Then I got off the bus to go catch my train.
I'm sure I didn't make a dent (although I heard him talk about it and he pointed me out to a friend on the train) but I sure felt better. One can only hope that someday that kid will grow up and actually have something to say.
Meanwhile, I must go study the Oxford English Dictionary to learn some witty stingers instead of a**, et al.
posted by eclecticlady @ 2:14 PM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
Erudite, I think it's emotions vs. words what lie at the heart of the matter here. The kid was angry, and his speech was angry.
The F-word isn't angry in itself. It can have other all sorts of uses: Lately, New York intellectuals seem to be using it a lot, probably hoping to sound as cool as the Britishers when they use the adjective "bloody" in front of every second word in a sentence.
The issue here is, that kid wanted to offend people on the bus. He could have used all sorts of words -- long and studied ones at that -- to accomplish that mission.
The question is, how do we stop anger? Do you agree?
Excellent point! In my own frustration with that kid, I failed to recognize his anger.
It might have been more constructive if I had turned around and said, "why are you angry?". I wonder how he would have reacted to that?
I don't know that we can stop anger. Some people feed off it and they will resist changing that.
Also, not all anger is unhealthy. Without it, where would Civil Rights or environmental or neighborhood activism be? And even Jesus did show his anger that one day in the temple.
With a slight change to the question it now becomes, how do we stop harmful anger?
I won't pretend to have the answer, especially since in my less lovely moments I have been passive aggressive and am still learning how to express anger. However, I do have ideas of what it would take.
Acknowledging a negative emotion tends to lessen its power. Take it from me the worst thing one could do is to stuff feelings inside because it leads to depression.
Therefore, it takes mentally and emotionally healthy families {not schools} teaching their children that it's okay to feel all emotions, including anger. This family would also teach that there are healthy ways to deal with emotion; not through physical violence but through verbalization ("I feel angry because..."), art and exercise.
Our social culture would have to affirm that it's okay to feel anger and allow healthy expression of those feelings, even if it's considered "dissension".
On an individual level, the person has to understand which emotion they are feeling as well. Just like words, there are degrees of feeling. They may feel afraid or powerless or resentment, not necessarily anger. Or they could feel a cumulation of past negative emotions.
Next, we all need to give people respect. People who are shown respect early on know how to respect others. I/we must learn to respect people through listening and caring.
What do you think?
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