[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s a child, senior Billie Huang’s parents enrolled her in a private Catholic school, and in fourth or fifth grade, against the expectations of her schooling, she began cursing. Before her introduction to swearing, Huang only used minor curse words.
In one instance at Catholic school, Huang said, “Oh my God,” and her substitute wrote her up. Though her parents were surprised about her newfound language, they quickly became accustomed to their daughter’s casual use of swear words.
When her homeroom teacher’s child instructed her on the more severe form of swearing, however, she began using expletives more frequently.
“I think I curse not because I mean to be vulgar, but because it’s something I’ve gotten used to. It’s an easy way to express what I’m feeling at the very moment,” Huang said. “I have to get to a certain level of comfort to be able to curse around somebody. I feel uncomfortable doing it around people who do not [swear], and I feel like cursing and colloquialism can help strengthen a friendship since it shows trust and being open and comfortable with each other.”
Huang’s frequent and laid-back use of vulgar words in one instance infiltrated her academic life. After finishing a paper for Advanced Placement Literature class, Huang read through her work and made comments to herself to look back over select spots. In a self-reminder to check her writing, however, Huang used crude wording, thinking she would be the only one to see her comments.
Unfortunately, she sent the paper to her teacher without deleting her comments. The teacher, in turn, replied to the comments, expressing her unhappiness with the language.
Regardless of this instance, Huang knows when and how to control her language.
“It’s not that hard to keep my words clean in front of people when I need to. It’s something I can easily turn on or off,” Huang said. “Like when I’m talking to my priest or someone in a formal setting, I’m not going to address him the same way I would any of my friends or classmates. But when I’m in a mixed setting with adults and other students, I’ll probably say frick instead of f— or shoot instead of s—.”
While Huang changed clean words to vulgar ones, senior Joshua Vincent substitutes curse words into cleaner adaptations for himself. Vincent is one of the few teenagers who doesn’t swear, while others swear 80 to 90 times a day, according to a study by the Chicago Tribune.
[quote]“I mainly avoid cursing because I think that it’s better to try to express my opinions about something without using words that have more negative connotations,” Vincent said. “I’ve always tried to avoid cursing out of preference. Also, I grew up in a household where if I cursed, there were consequences.”[/quote] Learning from the reprimandations of his older siblings, Vincent decided swearing was just not worth anything negative that comes with it. If Vincent’s parents heard intentional swearing by one of their children, the punishment would be a spanking. If the cursing was unintentional, however, the child would just get a strong reprimand. With those values translated into her classroom, math teacher Marla Clowe treats inappropriate language with a private conversation, and students are usually apologetic.
“Every once in a while, the swearing is directed at me,” Clowe said. “My initial response is to take them into the hall and have a conversation about the inappropriateness of their response. Generally, when it is directed at me, it is the result of frustrations from outside of the classroom or me, and we can generally talk through it. There are times when we are unable to talk through a situation, and [if] the situation does not de-escalate it may result in a referral.”
Even outside of her classroom, Clowe is uncomfortable with students cursing in the hallway and will generally ask them to stop. At school, Clowe does not believe crude language is appropriate. She things cursing should only be used in a private setting where one cannot be overheard by someone who might be offended. Vincent agrees, though he thinks language is up to the speaker.
“If [students’] parents accept it, and if the teachers accept it, then that’s their choice,” Vincent said. “If it’s in an angry rant, it seems a little extreme, but for more benign conversations, to each their own.”
Though there are no solid data before the 1970’s, psychologicalscience.org states that with the increase in television and radio sales, more people are exposed to swearing. Clowe also sees an increase in casual swearing in private conversations, Huang thinks cursing has become more common in general. Huang said it’s hard to find a PG-13 movie without a single curse word, and she notices it’s difficult to find a mainstream album that doesn’t have the explicit parental advisory sticker on it.
“I think cursing is part of the kind of culture we live in,” Huang said. “I think that today’s culture has made it almost impossible to avoid curse words, and cursing has become more of an everyday social thing than an angry, trashy thing, though it very well could be given the context.”
What are your opinions about cursing? Let us know in the comments below.