Swearing in public

April 30th, 2008 by Mike | Posted in rant |

Yesterday evening I was at the good ol’ Woodland Mall in Grand Rapids minding my own beeswax with Dallas (@dallasw) and Nick (@l4zyn3rd). We were heading to get some food (Wing Heaven, for the record) and I was telling a humorous tale of an occurrence at work from earlier that day. While telling the story, I was–as many people do–emphasizing with curse words to make the story funnier (as many people do), I was yelled at from out of nowhere by a man holding an infant. He asked/said very loudly, “Hey, could you please not swear? There are children around.”

When this guy asked/told me to not swear in front of his infant (who I seriously doubt could have taken in any word I was saying given the distance I was from the guy) I was seriously taken aback. Now, in the situation, we were walking by a children’s play area, but at the same time I wasn’t speaking loudly–or any louder than I usually speak, which I guess is semi-loud–and I was, for a small moment, very pissed off at this guy for saying what he said. But, before I could really react to what he said in a logical and intelligent yet angry way, I just turned to him and said, “Yea, sure,” in a neutral voice and kept walking. The event ended there and that was that.

It’s been a good two years since I’ve been out of high school–a very good two years if you ask me–almost two years since I’ve turned 18 and since I’ve graduated high school and turned 18 I don’t think I’ve had anyone outside of my own mother ask me not to swear (and when I was asked not to swear, it was in front of my younger sister, not in public). With that said, I have to wonder, what place does someone in public have to say whether or not someone should/can or shouldn’t/can’t swear? What are the age brackets for such an unwritten rule?

With those rhetorics aside, my real question is this: Why do (some) parents feel the need to sheild their children simple and pointless things that they deem ‘evil’ or ‘bad’ such as swearing?

I do know that parents have an innate drive to protect their children and I am glad that they do have that, but when it comes down to it protecting your child from hearing curse words or profanity seems pointless when there are greater injustices in the world to protect your children from. I understand parents don’t want their children to respect them by not saying those words, but instilling rules and just blocking the words out are two very different things.

Really, it comes down to me being pissy about hos uptight people can be. i want to slap that guy in the face now for telling/asking me not to swear because the world isn’t perfect. The majority of people swear, have sworn or will swear in the future and as we all need to/should know is that WORDS DON’T FUCKING HURT. Just because I say ‘fuck’ in public doesn’t mean your heart is going to stop. Saying ’shit’ when your pissed doesn’t kill babies. Screaming ‘God damn it!’ when you break something isn’t going to burn down a forest.

Swearing does not and will never hurt anyone or anything. Period.