Cursing in Tongues
The other day at school, I had the high-school students play Taboo. It’s Charades, with words instead of gestures. They write nouns on scraps of paper, put them in a hat, and take turns pulling words out and trying to describe them to the rest of the class. The only rule is that they can’t say the word itself.
A weird thing happened. During one student’s turn, she said, “A girl who fucks…” and instantly, her teammates responded, “bitch.” This was, apparently, the correct response. (Certain words—especially culturally relevant words among young people—here in Spain have different meanings than the ones I’m used to, so “bitch” might be something closer to “slut.” I’m not sure, and I didn’t press the issue.)
What did strike me, however, was that I was the only one in the room who flinched. In a classroom setting, those curse words were jarring to me. Meanwhile, the students thought nothing of them. Judging by their lack of reaction, the words might as well have been ‘tree’ and ‘door.’
On March 3, 2011 (I have it in my journal), during a college class, I made myself the enemy of an entire auditorium.
The course focused on sensitivity in journalism, and the professor had invited a guest-speaker who had Down Syndrome. The subject of his presentation was the use of the R-word: retarded.
From what I can remember, he discussed the history of that word and how much it hurt his feelings. When he opened the floor to questions, I raised my hand. I asked—probably in a rambling, inarticulate way—whether telling people not to use the r-word would only encourage more use of it.
“Aren’t you giving it even more power to hurt your feelings? Wouldn’t you be better off just ignoring it?” I can see myself asking.
Oh, the looks I got! I can still see the heat pouring from the eyes of my classmates. “Just … no,” an acquaintance said from across the aisle. I wish I could remember how the guest speaker answered. I felt like an idiot.
The exact opposite of my Taboo experience happens to me with Spanish curse words. I know them; I know them all. But I didn’t start speaking Spanish until I was a teenager, by which time, I had already hit my cursing prime. I was never forbidden to speak—and punished for speaking—them in the way a child is when he lets an expletive fly.
It was never even taboo, let alone forbidden, for me to curse in Spanish. It still surprises me how little visceral effect on me Spanish curse words have.
For example: I used to misspeak the phrase, “ni de coña” (no way) as “ni de coño” (coño = cunt). I must’ve said it 25 or 30 times until, finally, someone corrected me. It was an honest mistake, but one that I can guarantee native speakers don’t make.
Try it yourself. These words probably mean nothing to you: “Me caigo en tus putos muertos.” And yet, that’s about the most vulgar, most insulting sentence in the Spanish language! (“I’m gonna take a shit on your fucking ancestors.”)
Even in our own mother tongue, the Atlantic Ocean renders some curse words moot. See Ray Ratto’s recent column for Deadspin about the impending death of Sports Illustrated: “… once you’ve seen Prince Fielder arse-out, the game is pretty much done.”
Deadpsin is not averse to curse words, but for many years, Ratto wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle, where even the word “ass” would’ve been forbidden. My guess is that he developed this work-around years ago; he figured out he could use “arse” (the British equivalent of ass) to both get the idea across and get it past his editors. “Arse,” to those of us from North America, doesn’t have even a hint of vulgarity.
Why is that so? I submit that words—and, by extension, ideas—that are taboo, or at least uncommon, have power over us simply by virtue of being taboo. That is to say: They only have the power we give them.
It’s been 8 and a half years since my insensitivity in sensitivity class. I understand more fully how difficult it is to “just ignore” insults. (No, I’ve never been on the receiving end of a racial or sexual slur, but I don’t need to get hit by a bus to know it doesn’t tickle.) And of course, people are entitled to react to insults, or what they perceive as insults, however they choose.
But as a practical matter, it still seems to me that the surest way to empower something or someone is to forbid it. The opposite is true, too: The most effective way to silence insulters—to pull the rug right from under them and remove all the power from their words—is to no-sell them completely.
If you enjoyed this story — and even if you didn’t — you should check out my book, Ticketless: How Sneaking Into The Super Bowl And Everything Else (Almost) Held My Life Together.
