continued…

I remember the first time I used an expletive in the presence of my mother. We (mother, stepfather and I) were driving around trying the decide where to eat dinner and I was sitting in the back seat. We pulled up to a certain restaurant of which I thought very poorly. My mother asked me what I thought about eating there and I told her, by way of an expletive, I thought they had extremely bad food. She said, “What did you say?” I had honestly just let that word slip out. I didn’t know if I was in Big Trouble or what. My mother laughed and seemed to regard it as some sort of coming of age ritual passage. She kept asking me if I would “kindly repeat what I had just said”. I was actually embarrassed and wouldn’t oblige her, though part of me realized the humor of the situation.

The first time I used an expletive in the presence of my father was early one morning in the kitchen. During the summer my father and stepmother got up early and got ready for work. So, I usually helped cook breakfast for everyone (parents and little sisters). I was using one of those plug-in griddles and preparing some pancakes. In my half awake, early morning, pre-coffee drinking years I failed in an attempt to flip one of the cakes and it buckled over on itself and created a sloppy malformed lump. Almost (but not quite or it wouldn’t qualify for inclusion at this point) under my breath, I once again let slip an expletive expressing my irritation at botching the flipping maneuver. My father was the only other person in the kitchen and I know he heard me but he didn’t say a word. Knowing him, he was probably too amused at my haphazard cooking style and my reaction to keep a straight enough countenance to properly disciple me.

At some time in her life, my teacher undoubtedly used the very expletive for which she sent me to the office. And I don’t necessarily condone fourteen-year-old children using that type of language in the middle of a class. There is, of course, a time and place for such things. This is not hypocrisy. It is just a matter of context. I’m certainly not some old school Berkeley Free Speech Movement Hippie Moron (and I’m not going over that whole thing again—I already covered that elsewhere and it took me three weeks to get the taste out of my mouth). I don’t see anything wrong with the Entertainment Industry regulating itself and issuing ratings on the expletive issue. No government interference please and thank you very much.

Sometimes, though, simply the suggestion or impression of expletives is actually a much more effective device in an entertainment medium. A couple of episodes of “The Simpsons” have Homer falling down hillsides yelling, “Doh! Dirty rotten—Oww!—Sonofuh—Doh!” and so forth. It is true that excessive expletive usage certainly wears down the effectiveness level. I can think of far too many motion pictures that could have used some Expletive Dialog Editing in pursuit of improving the overall aesthetic value.

Once my nephew was talking to his grandmother, who was complaining about some situation that I have forgotten the exact circumstances. The essence of the grandmother’s problem was a catch-22 type of deal: She wanted to do X, but needed to get Y done first, but before Y could be done, she had to accomplish X, et cetera and so forth. My nephew overheard her bemoaning aloud her exasperation over this unworkable state of affairs and observed, “You’re screwed, huh?”

Not exactly tactful, not exactly an expletive either (close though), not exactly an appropriate response from a four year old, but it was accurate and more to the point very funny. We all laughed for weeks over that one.

The only downside to the whole expletive issue is that my wife claims it is, in fact, a vice. Although, it never seems to keep her from swearing like a sailor when I come home late without calling.