by Christopher Schlegel
Expletives are wonderful tools of language. More frequently referred to as cussing, cursing or swearing, the proper term (i.e. the one I like most) is expletive. They are capable of providing a depth of expression that, when necessary, other words simply cannot convey. When you crush three-fourths of your hand into the engine block trying to remove that old alternator, what are your going to say? “Ouch! Gosh that hurt!”? When your bass player messes up a twelve bar, three-chord blues song for the ninth time in three gigs what do you tell him? “Golly, man. You sure got that wrong, again. Next time make sure you play that darn tune the right way!”? I think not. It simply doesn’t have the right zing to it. What you need (or at least, what I want) is a few Well-Placed, Ready-To-Wear, Explode-On-Impact Expletives.
When I was a wee child in elementary school I remember having my mouth washed out with soap. Literally. I know you’ve probably heard that line before, but I fear most people use it in some vague figurative sense. Not me, no sir or ma’am, I did the real deal. Or rather, I used some colorful expletive and one of my teachers did the real deal to me.
In junior high school I was minding my own business in biology class. The teacher announced we would be having a “pop” quiz. This was occurring much to everyone’s surprise and unprepared dismay. That’s the point behind a pop quiz. As the teacher walked around the room passing them out, she came by my desk and handed me one.
“How many points is this quiz going to worth,” I inquired. She told me it was going to be worth the same amount as a full blown exam. At this juncture I opened my mouth and emitted a quasi-religious expletive. I was sent to the vice-principal’s office.
I had been sent to the principal’s office before for various non-disciplinary reasons. But, the vice-principal was the guy that dealt with the troublemakers that needed a strong authoritative touch. I had never been there as I was a good kid and never started any trouble (at least any Real Trouble, I’ll explain that some other time). Consequently, I didn’t even know where the office was located. I went walking around asking various secretaries where I was supposed to go. They were all too busy to acknowledge my presence much less give me directions. I sat in a chair in a hall way near the administrative section of the school and waited.
Twenty minutes later my biology teacher came storming down the hall and found me. She was extremely angry and asked several questions not waiting for answers. When she ran out of things to say she finally showed me the way to the vice-principal’s office. This guy was (as most junior high school disciplinarians probably are) severely over worked and certainly had more serious to do (little thugs to beat on, borderline cases to intimidate and a backlog stack of paperwork lurking on several desktop corners) than to deal with me for using an expletive when surprised at the point value of a pop quiz in biology class. He gave me a “good talking to” while trying to keep a straight face. My biology teacher chimed in several times with a few classic and time tested lines: “Do you kiss you mother with that mouth?” and “Where do you pick up such awful language?” and “Do you speak like that at home?”.
Where in the world did she think I learned that word?
I’m not going to question the general intelligence of one of my junior high teachers (at least in this essay) but . . . that’s either a lady laboring under World Class Denial or downright stupidity.
As a matter of fact, I can’t remember a point in my life that I didn’t know an expletive. Children are fast learners, as you may know. I have always loved to learn everything I could, and if it was something as fun as expletives then it was a priority.