Saturday, May 27, 2006

Profanity laden tirades

After the Big Sister's (who's 5'4") two posts about profanity I felt compelled to share and seeing how basil slipped away and forgot to take my keys, well I'll just use his blog as a confessional.

At my previous job I worked with folks from all over the country. I started the job while I was still in college and a tad bit on the naive side of things when it comes to how the world operates, come to think of the phrase "Hayseed" was used to describe me more than once. Of course those doing the describing were Yankees.

One of the things I learned during my time on the job is that Yankees talk different (and don't know how to fix tea, but that's another post). Now when I say they talk different, it's not just their accents, it's their vocabulary, or as the Big Sister (who's 5'4") said, their lack thereof. See one of the things I had to adjust to was their fondness of stringing together four letter words that you wouldn't use around your mom, or at least I wouldn't use around mine, and at first I took them to be fightin' words.

Well not so much fightin' in the physical sense, but they sure managed to get me on edge and ruffle the ole feathers. Now I had a pretty simple way to handle these folks. They'd start cussing at me and I'd hang up. Plain and simple when they quit their fussing all they'd hear would be the dial-tone. Some of them learned pretty quick, some, well lets just say they were a bit dense and it took a talkin' too for them to get the point.

Well as the years went by I ended up adjusting my vocabulary a bit when I was dealing with guys who had potty mouth, but I never directed my obesities at anyone. I just wasn't, and probably won't ever be, comfortable cussin' somebody, 'less I was using fightin' words and well I realized a long time ago that there's quite a few folks out there a whole lot bigger and a whole lot meaner than I am, okay, maybe not meaner, but you get the point, so I've adjusted my language accordingly.

The biggest change though came with the hatching of the phinlet, my first child. The missus and my father have both warned me that chirrens are going to pickup on words said with emphasis. All it took was watching Meet the Fockers for a second time to realize that I'd best clean up my language just a bit more. This dear readers, is where y'all come in to play, I need some valid substitutes and well the lack of sleep is cutting into my creativity. So gimmie' your bestest not profanity profanities.

6 comments:

  1. phin,

    I am so delighted to read this post; you are no doubt an awesome dad! It's nice to know you are looking after the phinlet. He's a blessed little guy.

    Sometimes when I don't want to say, "Dirty Word!" I say, "Worty Dird!" That sounds a little naughtier doesn't it? Of course, being Southern, I have said "dadgum" or "darn" at times, but I once read that if you say a substitute for profanity, it actually becomes the profanity since it becomes a synonym in your mind. Well, that messed with my simple mind, so mostly I don't say bad words except when I am expressing extreme displeasure.

    When my hubby pushes my buttons, depending on my level of ire, I will say initials. If I am fuming, I will say "B H!" If I am about to blow a gasket, I will say "A H!" Both refer to the rear end, and hubby laughs at both instances. I guess there's something ludicrous about a grown woman saying initials instead of the actual words. I typically lose my temper when basil visits. You see, I think he and my hubby tag team against me as a form of amusement. I think they bet how long it will take me to say "A H!" and the loser has to buy supper...or something like that. sigh...

    (((Hugs))) and blessings to you and yours.

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  2. The Bard is a good source of alternatives. Or you can get flowery yourself. Examples:

    You lizard brained louse!

    Prevaricating mice!

    Dogs in shopping carts!

    Jesus in jogging shorts!

    You menace to serenity.

    The man be an underachieving moron.

    You are a practitioner of inappropriate affection.

    Your wit is so dry it causes a drought in conversation.

    Fortunately a man of your caliber only comes along every 10,000 years.

    The last boy scout to meet her pushed her into traffic.

    Hope these help.

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  3. A friend of mine coined (I think) the term "mammy stopper" which I tend to use occasionally. When I tamper with my lack of vocabulary, it is usually to string together four letter words in new, and creative ways. Like the way Ralphie described his dad in "A Christmas Story."

    Another good place to find substitutes is the Michael Keaton movie "Johnny Dangerously." In this movie they use phrases like "you forging icehole," "filthy bastages," and "somonabotch."

    When I'm at home with my chirrun, I use words like, "son of a bugger," "frick," "fricker," "mammy fricker," "friggin,'" "freakin" and different combinations of those and "mammy." I also use, "Fudge" "Crud" and "shoot". Possessing a natural gift for profanity, and spending six years in law enforcement honing that natural ability has made it difficult for me to seperate myself from my lack of vocabulary. But if I can do it, you can do it.

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  4. Jumpin jimminy crickets on a pogo stick!
    Peedaddle!
    You're a boil on the butt of humanity!
    Creepin crud in a cuppa custard!
    Beluga blubber!

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  5. you could always just use the "F" word......... FIDDLESTICKS.

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  6. I seem to remember Dr. McCoy in the tv series "Star Trek" saying, "Get your Vulcan hands off of me!"
    I use phrases like "he is sitting on his shoulders".
    Mostly I just exclaim "FRUSTRATION" or "TARNATION".
    I went through acussing phase as a teen, thankfully-I outgrew it.

    ReplyDelete

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