The language teen-aged girls use today - at my Catholic school! - in "mixed company" as my mother used to call it, is atrociuos! They are not allowed to use profanity on campus, and they forget that I can hear them as they chatter in their groups in the library. Thank God that arbiter of politeness still exists! At both Catholic and publ…
The language teen-aged girls use today - at my Catholic school! - in "mixed company" as my mother used to call it, is atrociuos! They are not allowed to use profanity on campus, and they forget that I can hear them as they chatter in their groups in the library. Thank God that arbiter of politeness still exists! At both Catholic and public schools, teachers are still addressed as Mr., Mrs and Ms. That hasn't been done in by the culture.
My wife's a retired children's librarian from a public city library. Quite a few similar observations from her over the years. Not that a lot of kids aren't going to eventually learn to swear like sailors (I certainly did, though not from my father, who was a merchant seaman before I came along but kept his profanity to an occasional 'damn' or two). Just kind of disheartening that so many are never taught or never learn when to turn it on and off. I can hurl the F-bomb with the best of 'em when properly provoked, but after 5 decades of listening to 'shop talk' containing various levels of profanity on a daily basis, it gets a bit old after a while.
Spent a decade plus working in a shop often elbow to elbow with a guy who'd been there for many years and who was the most ill-tempered, profane and vulgar man I've ever known. It all got to be pretty much background noise after a while, but to illustrate...
A newly hired machinist was walking past where I was working at one end of the shop at the exact moment this fellow crashed his mill at the other end. The new guy stopped, turned around and listened in obvious amazement at the profanity-saturated tirade boiling over about 20 yards away. He then turned to me and said in all seriousness "I didn't know a human being could say the word f**k so many times without taking a breath."
I literally cracked up, then managed to choke out "Welcome to our world" while gesturing at the other fellows in the area, who though capable of salty language themselves, still looked askance at this miscreant's constant flow of verbal sewage.
The language teen-aged girls use today - at my Catholic school! - in "mixed company" as my mother used to call it, is atrociuos! They are not allowed to use profanity on campus, and they forget that I can hear them as they chatter in their groups in the library. Thank God that arbiter of politeness still exists! At both Catholic and public schools, teachers are still addressed as Mr., Mrs and Ms. That hasn't been done in by the culture.
My wife's a retired children's librarian from a public city library. Quite a few similar observations from her over the years. Not that a lot of kids aren't going to eventually learn to swear like sailors (I certainly did, though not from my father, who was a merchant seaman before I came along but kept his profanity to an occasional 'damn' or two). Just kind of disheartening that so many are never taught or never learn when to turn it on and off. I can hurl the F-bomb with the best of 'em when properly provoked, but after 5 decades of listening to 'shop talk' containing various levels of profanity on a daily basis, it gets a bit old after a while.
Spent a decade plus working in a shop often elbow to elbow with a guy who'd been there for many years and who was the most ill-tempered, profane and vulgar man I've ever known. It all got to be pretty much background noise after a while, but to illustrate...
A newly hired machinist was walking past where I was working at one end of the shop at the exact moment this fellow crashed his mill at the other end. The new guy stopped, turned around and listened in obvious amazement at the profanity-saturated tirade boiling over about 20 yards away. He then turned to me and said in all seriousness "I didn't know a human being could say the word f**k so many times without taking a breath."
I literally cracked up, then managed to choke out "Welcome to our world" while gesturing at the other fellows in the area, who though capable of salty language themselves, still looked askance at this miscreant's constant flow of verbal sewage.