I'm simply going to hop right into my topic*: bad words.
When you were a kid, were there words you weren't supposed to say? I know 'stupid' was one in my house. Seems pretty tame these days. The first time I heard someone say 'bitch' was when I was maybe seven. At the park in my previous townhouse complex, there frequented a boy whose name was Jimmy and he was considered mean. Then one time he called my friend-who-wasn't-a-very-good-friend-in-retrospect Miriam a bitch. That's the end of the story.
Anyway, it wasn't okay to say these words whether they were 'hell', 'shit', 'ass', 'doodoohead', 'bitch', or, God forbid, 'fuck.' I'm not sure how we knew what the words were or what the meant (we probably didn't) but we knew that we shouldn't say them.
But sometimes we wanted to.
This could easily be a blog post about how we choose the words that aren't okay to say. Why do we have a language with 'bad words' when we created them all? But it's actually about something about as tangible. So I ask, when was that moment when I went from an innocently spoken girl to someone who drops whatever language she feels like, and is comfortable with that, even when others aren't.
After Jimmy, I had friend who introduced me to the less guarded colloquialisms of our youth. She said those words and soon it caught on and I did, too--around her, anyway. Maybe I wanted to fit in. Maybe it was just nice to be in an environment where no one would be mad at me for saying the wrong word.
Those words traveled home and somehow, saying 'shit' was fine instead of 'shoot'. I could say 'what the hell' instead of 'what the heck'. Slowly, I transitioned into the unguarded language I use today.
How the fuck did that happen?
How did I miss the moment when it became okay to say that Professor Umbridge was a bitch in front of my parents? When did it become acceptable for me to comment on how fucked up the human race is? And on the flip side, when did it become normal for my parents to drop the 'f' bomb around me (not that they do, but in theory)? What is this batshit craziness?
p.s. I don't swear liberally around my parents. It's only sparingly and when I feel it's necessary. So please don't start thinking that every other word I utter to my mom is fuck. Because it's not. I'm still a little apprehensive about that. ;)
Question: Does your language change depending on your company? Also, was there ever a time when you heard someone say the 'f' word and it seemed totally wrong coming out of their mouth?
*What? I have a topic? I know, BEDA is mindblowing, even on day 1.
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