Monday, July 7, 2008

Bad Language

soap in mouth One of the places where a lot of bad language is found is on the city bus. I remember going on the city bus in High School and I kept hearing curse words. It has become an accepted way of speaking for some. But I don’t think its good for children to hear it. Children will repeat it at the wrong time, and offend someone or get expelled from school even. But sometimes when others hear a little kid say a curse word they may get shocked and think its adorable that a little 3 year old knows such words already. Then they laugh and encourage the kid on. 

I feel cursing shouldn't be allowed by kids. But I don't think washing the mouth out with soap is the answer. Just because soap cleans, doesn't mean you can clean out a mouth that way. It's not the mouth that's doing the talking, its the brain telling the mouth what to say. Second of all, soap is not a food and you don't want to teach your kid to put stuff that aren't food in their mouth. Next they'll put Windex or detergent and then your in trouble. Thankfully, I don't think anyone still uses the practice of putting soap in kids mouths for saying not nice stuff.

Now bad language, doesn't just mean curse words. Being chutzpadik also shouldn't be acceptable. Lots of times kids become the center of attention for being chutzpadik. With the right personality a kid can be admired for it. But I don't think it should be encouraged. Even with teenagers and adults they will have disrespect for other adults, I don't know how they have the audacity to do such a thing.

A college student says to a professor:

"I'll quit smoking if you'll give everyone in the class an 'A'"

now after hearing this, all the other students were on his side, cause they wanted an A. Then the student had the audacity to say:

"Now if you don't give the class an 'A' then its all on you, I gave you the choice, now my continuing smoking is on you, its all up to you!"

How can a student dare say such a thing to a teacher?

Now besides for the way you talk, bad language also includes little words people take for granted to be slang. Words like "P***ed off" should not be said. Even a word like "stupid" should be replaced by "silly". Now if that's all to extreme for you, then just stick with the basics. Don't use bad words near your kids. It might be good for shock value sometimes, but its unprofessional and undignified.

For when you get frustrated and feel like you have to curse to get out the anger, instead make up your own word. I've heard all kinds of words used for these times, words such as "door knob", "fire truck". Pick any object you want, and use that word as your "curse word". Or even make up your own word. But don't use curse words.

I especially feel strongly against parents using curse words on their children. It’s bad enough if a parent tells a kid that their a monster or any negative label. But to call your kid a piece of s***, is just horrible. It lowers the kids self esteem and self confidence. It makes the child have negative feelings toward the parent. It causes the child to be disrespectful toward the parent by cursing back.

7 comments:

  1. Parents cursing kids is messed up.

    You can use curses from another language. ;-)
    Stupid - Baka, Aho (Jap)
    Shit, Damn - Chikusho, Kuso, Shimatta (Jap)

    a fun way to learn Mandarin

    fire truck

    ReplyDelete
  2. A teacher of mine once mentioned that she was particular never to call her children names- for example, she'd never say, you're a liar; rather, you lied!

    I definitely see this as a more constructive approach, but it's a madreiga.

    Anyway, to link with your subsequent post, the TV situation is only aggravating this problem. I still remember years ago how my aunt never used to let her kids watch The Simpsons because her son used to imitate Bart afterward. And this was years ago when TV shows still had some integrity.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Moshe: Well so long as the kids don't know what the other language words mean than it is ok, for all they know its a made up word.

    Oysh, that is a lot of bad words...
    Here's one sentence that I agree with: "The fact that many insults are prefaced with the Mandarin Chinese word for dog attest to the animal's low status" see dogs are low!

    The video was funny, but not something to encourage.

    Mike: I heard that theory and I agree with it. It harms the child in so many ways when their called names that have a negative connotation.

    That is definitely true, a lot of language does come from TV. A neighbor of mine didn't let her kids watch Simpson's. I used to think if something was cartoon it was automatically good, but it is not so. The Simpson's is an example of a cartoon show that is not clean. The content to it is not something good for children to watch. It shows the father in a bad light.

    My teacher said she never liked the Bernstein bear books because it always made the father look like the bad one and he would get in trouble and its not a good thing for kids to see a father figure in that way.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Though a child will probably not understand this, Homer is actually a great father. I remember reading about some professor or parenting class or something where Homer was used as an example of how a father's supposed to be.

    Think about it, he always makes time to spend with his kids. He never really gets angry and yells. He doesn't cheat on his wife even though he was tempted to. He screws up sometimes but he always tries to be there for his family.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well that doesn't sound like the perfect example, it sounds more like a normal parent. But then again no one is perfect. But your right, I watched the Simpson's movie and it seemed to teach a lesson.

    ReplyDelete
  6. BS"D

    I swear in Italian when I get angry (usually because of computer malfunction or inability to open a well closed bottle or jar because of wet hands)! Delicious stuff and basically a combination of obscenity with blasphemy against the church that caused us so much grief over the centuries.

    In some communities there is a big problem with Yiddish and Hebrew swearing that somehow becomes kosher because it is in "our" language. Those words and phrases, unless abbreviated (pay tzaddik etc) are best kept in the mikveh dressing room since not yet frum Jews and now even non-Jews understand them as well and it makes us look very uncouth.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I never heard of a Hebrew or Yidish curse word that's abbreviated as Pey Tzadik.

    ReplyDelete

Now using inline comments, instead of the check box, Click the "Subscribe" link to receive follow up e-mails with comments.