The following article from Newsweek has triggered some fond memories for me today. In addition it seems to indicate to me that my future grandchildren or great grandchildren may be some of the most honest people ever.
http://www.newsweek.com/swearing-associated-honesty-verbal-intelligence-539156
I grew up in the '60's and '70's as a child from a then uncommon blended family. My mother was and still is one of the most polite, articulate people you will ever meet. She constantly tried to instill these traits into her three daughters and son. In addition to normal parental lessons of hard work, kindness and honesty, she included proper table etiquette and polite speech to others. While she may have partially succeeded (with me anyway) in the table manners battle (I am still rabid about napkins in the lap and no elbows on the table while eating), I'm afraid she lost the battle with me in the polite speech war. A large part of this failure was due to my father.
My father was probably best described as "a man's man" with a work ethic second to none. He loved his wife and children fiercely and did his best to understand three girls in spite of growing up with only two brothers. Thanks to the Army and the GI Bill, he graduated college and eventually carved out a career in the heavily male dominated Agriculture industry. The man was a general manager of a beef packing plant and in his spare time he farmed 640 acres of wheat and cattle. The Ag realm then tended to be a heavily male dominated industry and the language used by those in it reflected this. (I apologize if this sounds sexist to my feminist friends!)
My father's language (while never used with us kids) was on par with the industry. The quote from the movie "A Christmas Story" by adult Ralphie describing his fathers swearing is spot on with my father, "He worked in profanity the way other artists might work in oils or clay. It was his true medium; A Master."
Being the manager of beef packing plant meant that he would get many calls even after the work day was normally over. This being the land-line phone age, he could not just step outside to take the call in private. The phone was within earshot of the dinner table so we kids received a well rounded education in colorful language. Much to my mothers despair!
At one point when growing up, Mom decided to institute a penalty jar for all foul language. At that time she was primarily trying to teach her children to stop telling each other to shut up and such things. We weren't quite brave enough to use our fathers language within her hearing at that point. The fine was to be .05/per bad word. I'm not sure this experiment worked as she planned. Because at that point rather than kind of tuning out Dad's work conversations, it became a game to see how much we could count up on his transgressions. I don't think this was what she had in mind. It seems like the penalty jar was abandoned after a few weeks and quite a few calls that cost Dad well over $2/call.
The man had his particular favorite strings of swear words that must be uttered with the right emphasis on the right syllables. A good universal saying for both work frustrations or farming frustrations had the acronym GDSOB. I'll leave you to decipher that. There were untold variations of this one but this was the 'ole reliable' of his swearing.
I'll never forget my mother's reaction the first time I uttered the word damn in front of her. I was in high school and had slammed my finger in the car door. If looks could have killed... Sorry Mom!
Needless to say, my attempts to be a good example to my own children were probably less than stellar. My husband also works in the Ag industry and that of course just added more fuel to the fire for my kids lessons. Judging from my now grown children's colorful language, it's becoming evident that this trait continues to be handed down. So, it's nice that the Newsweek article by Dana Dovey is saying that people who swear are more honest.
The honesty battle was a win Mom but the polite language, not so much!
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