The Art of Profanity

"Good authors, too, who once knew better words,
Now only use four-letter words,
Writing prose.
Anything goes."
—Cole Porter (1934)

When I was a little kid, my parents did not want me to hear the My Fair Lady original cast album because Rex Harrison said "damn" on it. Now children are constantly exposed to words that, as Harrison also said on that album, "would make a sailor blush." Television is bad, movies are worse, most popular music comes with a "WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE" label, and don't even get me started on the Internet. Can you imagine what Cole Porter might have to say about today's language? (Probably something like, "This s--- is f---ing ridiculous.")

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against profanity per se. Like Mark Twain, I believe that, "Under certain circumstances...profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer." However, there is a time and place for it. (Twain himself claimed to reserve it solely for "discussing house rent and taxes.")

Unfortunately, people now days use it indiscriminately, all of the time.

At this point, I would like to say a word to whatever witty person came up with the name "I F---ing Love Science" for the popular Facebook page, which, in turn, has inspired countless other "I [or We] F---ing Love [Whatever]" pages. Yes, we all know that science is a wonderful thing, but is it really necessary to swear about it? I suppose you think you're being ironic.

That's not irony.

Irony is when, in the 1998 Coen Brothers film, The Big Lebowski, the mysterious cowboy-narrator (Sam Elliott) says to The Dude (Jeff Bridges), "Do you have to use so many cuss words?" and The Dude replies, "What the f--- you talking about?" That's irony.

I f---ing love irony.

The Big Lebowski is an excellent example of the artistic use of profanity. It can be a powerful medium. The problem is that the more it is used, the less power it has.

And at the rate it is being used today, it will soon have no power left at all.

In 1939, when Rhett Butler said, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," both Scarlet O'Hara and the audience were shocked. At the time, no gentleman would ever think of saying "damn" to a lady. However, a few decades later, everybody (including Rex Harrison) was saying "damn" to everybody. If Gone With the Wind were made in the 1980's, imagine the stream of profanity Rhett would have to let loose on Scarlet to shock an audience. And now—what could Rhett Butler possibly say to shock us now?

We've heard it all.

So please choose your words carefully, reserving the choicest four-letter ones for special occasions. Otherwise, what will you say when—as I did recently—you come home exhausted from a long day at work, only to find that one of the cats has vomited all over the hall carpet, and the carpet is light beige and the vomit is that deep shade of reddish brown that will never come out, due to the indelible dye they put in cat food for god knows what reason, since cats are color blind anyway?

Remember—a curse is a terrible thing to waste.

Sequestergate

The dozen-or-so regular readers of my blog will know that I generally steer clear of politics. (When you only have a dozen-or-so readers, you can't afford to alienate half of them.) However, if you stumbled across this post by accident and are expecting to read my opinion of what everyone else on the Internet is talking about this month—well, I'm sorry to disappoint you.

This is not a political rant.

It's a linguistic rant.

In case you're from another planet, "the sequester" is a package of across-the-board spending cuts set by Congress to automatically go into effect this year should they not agree on a budget. I don't know why they chose the word "sequester." According to Merriam-Webster, the most widely accepted definition of that word is "to set apart," as in "sequester a jury." If you ask me, they could have found a much better name for their budgetary booby trap—say, for instance, "the budgetary booby trap."

However, that is not what has me "on my soapbox," as my Aunt Vonna used to say.

This week a winter storm dropped up to two feet of snow on parts of the Midwest and East Coast. Reporters have dubbed the storm "Snowquester."

Snowquester.

Apparently it is now perfectly acceptable to take any two random events that have nothing whatsoever to do with each other and combine them to make a new word that means absolutely nothing. Also in the news this week: the death of Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez. Why not call the storm "Snowgo Chavez?"

I blame Watergate.

In case you're from that same planet that hasn't heard about the sequester, "Watergate" was a political scandal that took place during the Nixon administration. It was called "Watergate" because "Watergate" is the name of the building where it happened. This makes sense.

However, every single scandal that has happened since Watergate has been referred to by the press as some sort of "gate"—e.g., Irangate, Monicagate, Troopergate, etceteragate—as if the word "gate" were a synonym for "scandal." This is ridiculous.

If the Watergate scandal had taken place at some other location—say the Howard Johnson Inn—would reporters have referred to the Anthony Weiner scandal as "Weinerjohnson?"

Now before all of you descriptive linguisticians (you know who you are) start lecturing me, let me assure you that I know perfectly well that language is a living thing and, as such, must constantly evolve.

But why must it always get dumber?

Julius and Greyjoy

A couple of days ago, I was in the back yard picking up fruit under the citrus trees, when I had the misfortune to step in cat poop. I uttered an expletive that was vulgar, yet accurately descriptive of what I had stepped in.

Our cats had nothing to do with it; Dickens and Zorra are strictly house cats. However, two neighbor cats have been regular (very regular, judging by what I stepped in) visitors to our back yard for the past few months. They are clearly from the same litter, though one is orange and one is gray. They aren't strays, because they both have collars. They won't let us get close enough to see if they have name tags, so we have provisionally named them "Julius" and "Greyjoy."

Ordinarily, I would not be tolerant of strange cats using our back yard as a toilet. Our neighbor to the north certainly isn't. Once, I watched Julius jump over the wall into his yard and immediately heard our neighbor bellow, "GET OUT!!!"

All I could think was, I hope the neighbors don't think these cats belong to us.

Because let's face it, it's pretty rude to allow your cats to go around digging up the neighbors' flower beds and scaring the birds away from their bird feeders. It's also dangerous for the cats. (One woman I know lost two cats in less than a year by allowing them to prowl the neighborhood. After she told me about the disappearance of the second, I told her I didn't want to hear about any more of her cats until she stopped feeding them to the coyotes.)

However, there is a reason I forgive my neighbors for allowing Julius and Greyjoy to terrorize the neighborhood.

Eight years ago, my parents and my Aunt Sheila flew out for a visit. During their visit, we spent a lot of time on our back yard patio. Cleo, our sweet old calico, was always with us. She was sixteen years old at the time; she couldn't get over the wall surrounding our yard if she wanted to, and she didn't want to. She just wanted to be where we were.

One day, towards the end of my family's visit, we were all out on the patio enjoying the sun. My mother noticed that Cleo was staring at something under the bird feeder.

"What's she looking at?" my mother asked.

"Birds," I said.

"Are you sure it isn't a squirrel? I hate squirrels."

"I didn't know you hated squirrels, Mom."

"Nasty rodents. They carry disease, you know."

We did have a squirrel who was a regular visitor to our yard. He liked to sun himself on one of the rocks under the bird feeder. I took another look.

It wasn't a squirrel. It wasn't birds, either. What had caught Cleo's interest was rats.

Lots of rats.

I had seen them foraging under the bird feeder and assumed they were birds. My eyes are not as good as they used to be. Fortunately, my mother's, father's, and aunt's eyes were even worse than mine.

If my mother felt so strongly about squirrels, I wondered how she would feel if she knew that there were about a dozen rats frolicking within twenty feet of her.

"Just birds, Mom. Isn't it about time we went inside?"

After my parents and aunt left, I bought a trap and took care of our little infestation. Since then, we see the occasional rat or two every year, but never as many as we had that year.

Since Julius and Greyjoy showed up, we haven't seen any.

Which is why I don't mind them visiting our yard from time to time.

I just need to be careful where I step.

Toby

Last weekend, Loretta made scrambled eggs for breakfast. Nothing special—just plain old scrambled eggs. We hadn't had scrambled eggs in a long time, and they tasted delicious—light, fluffy, and buttery. I remarked on how tasty they were.

"It's Hazel's recipe," Loretta said.

"Hazel?"

"Hazel and Frank?"

Of course! How could I forget Hazel and Frank?

And Toby.

Ten years ago, Loretta and I traveled to England. We spent a few days in London, then rented a car and drove all over the country. I wanted to revisit some of the places I visited with my family on my first trip to England in the 1980's. We visited Salisbury, Bath, the Cotswalds, Liverpool, and Oxford, before returning to London and taking the Eurostar to Paris.

It was in Stow-on-Wold, in the Cotswalds, that we met Frank, Hazel, and Toby. Frank and Hazel were an elderly couple who were house- and dog-sitting for the owner of the bed and breakfast where we stayed. Toby was the innkeeper's terrier.

Everyone we met on our trip was friendly and made us feel at home, but with Frank and Hazel it was more than that. Maybe it was because they weren't professional innkeepers. They felt more like family.

In the morning, after a delicious breakfast featuring Hazel's scrambled eggs, we did not want to leave. Hazel sensed that we wanted to stay a bit longer. "I was just about to take Toby for a walk," she said. "Would you like to do it?"

"Could we?"

It was a beautiful June morning. Off in the trees, a cuckoo was singing. Toby led us through a field, then turned down a quiet country road. We continued for some time, then stopped at a small farm.

"Do you have any idea where we are?" asked Loretta.

"No, but I'm sure Toby does. He seems to know these cows."

After he finished visiting with the cows, we thought sure Toby would turn around and head for home, but he continued pulling us in the same direction, away from town. We began to become concerned.

Don't dogs have an established route they follow on a walk? Don't they always circle back and end up at home?

Not Toby.

Maybe he missed his owner. Maybe he was tracking an interesting scent. Maybe he didn't think as much of Hazel's cooking as we did.

Whatever the reason, it became apparent that he was headed for the next village.

We finally took control and got Toby headed back the way we came. Fortunately, we remembered the way, and we all returned unscathed. It was quite an adventure, and we learned a valuable lesson from it.

Never follow a dog unless you're sure you know where he's going.

Sounds in Space

Yesterday my sister sent me this picture, taken over fifty years ago, of my mother playing me a record* on my parents' brand new stereophonic hi-fi phonograph.**

I had two LPs at the time: Disney's Alice in Wonderland and Let's All Sing with the Chipmunks. However, I suspect that the LP my mother is about to play is the stereo demonstration record that came with the phonograph: Sounds in Space.

I loved this record. I asked my parents to play it for me again and again until I'm sure they were sick to death of it. I loved the way the sound effects filled the room, and the sound of the narrator's voice and footsteps moving from one speaker to the other. But most of all, I loved the music—especially Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kijé and Lena Horne's spectacular live recording of Day In, Day Out, both of which I still love and now have on my iPod.

In this age of instant digital music, iPods, and ear buds, it's hard to imagine the excitement of a four-year-old boy hearing this album for the first time, having previously only heard recorded music from the tinny speaker of a portable record player or transistor radio. Here's a link to the first track on the record. Listen to it, and try to imagine that you are a four-year-old child hearing recorded stereophonic sound for the first time.

(By the way, that distinctive, resonant voice explaining stereophonic sound is Ken Nordine, who was pretty famous in the day for his recordings of beat poetry over jazz background music. He also served as Linda Blair's vocal coach for The Exorcist.)

Footnotes

*Years and years ago, in the last century—before the Internet or iPods—music used to come on vinyl discs, also called "records." A small disc, called a "45" because it played at 45 revolutions per minute, held a single song on each side. Larger discs, called "LPs" for "long-playing," played at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute and held an entire album. There were also "EPs," which were...oh, never mind. Look it up on Wikipedia, if you're really interested.

**A "phonograph" was a device for playing records. "Hi-fi" meant superior, or "high fidelity" sound, and "stereophonic"...never mind. You can look that up, too.

Up, Up, and Away

When I was growing up, every kid was obsessed with the space program, and every kid (every boy, anyway) wanted to get his hands on a model rocket. The trouble was, model rockets were expensive. No one I knew could afford to buy one, or had parents who would buy such an expensive—not to mention dangerous—toy for their child. (Except for one lucky kid in my sixth grade class, whose parents were rich and didn't mind if their son lost a finger or two.)

Even when my friend Bill and I put our savings together, we didn't have enough money to buy a model rocket.

We did, however, have enough to buy a hot air balloon.

We should have been skeptical when we saw the ad: "10 FT. HOT AIR BALLOON—Rises to amazing heights on just hot air." After all, this was the same company that sold those famous "X-Ray Specs" and a "Polaris Nuclear Submarine" made of cardboard. But we were kids, and we believed any nonsense we read—especially if it was in the back of a comic book.

When the package arrived, we thought there must have been a mistake. How could a 10-foot hot air balloon fit in such a small envelope? Inside, we found several large pieces of red and white tissue paper, a wire ring, and a cryptic instruction sheet. Undaunted, we spread the contents out on the ping-pong table in Bill's basement and began to piece the tissue paper panels together with Elmer's Glue-All. After hours of painstaking work (the tissue paper was incredibly fragile; we were constantly having to repair tears), we had something that vaguely resembled the picture in the ad and might even be taken—by someone who had never actually seen one—for a hot air balloon.

To us, it was a thing of indescribable beauty.

We carefully carried it to the empty field across from Bill's house. The instructions suggested building a small stove to supply the hot air. We didn't have the patience or parts to build a stove, so we simply built a small fire and held the balloon over it. (And our parents thought model rockets were dangerous!)

Miraculously, we did not start a brush fire.

Miraculously, the balloon filled with hot air. We released it, and...

Miraculously (and majestically), it rose into the sky.

High above the earth it soared (maybe not as high as a model rocket, but pretty darned high), before drifting gently back to earth.

It was the coolest thing we had ever seen.

We made the fire bigger, hoping that more heat would make the second flight even more spectacular. Unfortunately, we made the fire a little too big. When we held it over the fire the second time, our tissue paper balloon burst into flames, like—well, like a balloon made of tissue paper.

It was the second coolest thing we had ever seen.

All of that excitement for just three dollars.

Yeah, I think we got our money's worth.

Happy Groundhog Day

Today is Groundhog Day, which means that, supposedly, if a groundhog comes out of its burrow (or wherever groundhogs live) and sees its shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter.

I remember my mother explaining this to me when I was a child, and even then the idea seemed silly to me. How can any animal predict the weather? When I was old enough to read a calendar, I discovered that, no matter what happens on February 2nd, the vernal equinox will always follow in approximately six weeks.

The original belief was that if it was cloudy and rainy on February 2nd, the rest of the winter would be mild...

If Candlemas be fair and bright,
Winter has another flight.
If Candlemas brings clouds and rain,
Winter will not come again.

...which, as any meteorologist will tell you, is also complete nonsense.

There is a classic Bill Murray movie called Groundhog Day. It has little to do with groundhogs or the weather, but is really about second (and third, fourth, fifth, sixth, etc.) chances. It's an excellent movie, and I highly recommend it. Perhaps I will watch it today.

But first I must go whale watching. I will let you know if I see any whales and, if I do, whether or not they see their shadows.

Happy Groundhog Day!