Thread: Adult Language

We all use language in strange ways. Take the Far Frozen North, for example, where people park in the driveway and drive in the parkway. And look at the difference a single letter can make. An automobile with a retractable top is a drophead coupé. The end of Charles I was a drophead coup.

Then there is the matter of what we euphemistically call 'adult language', by which we mean the words used in a conversation between two ten-year-olds, one afflicted with potty mouth and the other suffering an advanced case of gutter mouth.

We all use those words, of course. I've spent years and years in the company of soldiers, sailors, merchant mariners, and worst of all, other journalists. When talking to myself I tend to out potty and out gutter any assortment of 10-year-old foul mouths you care to assemble.

In a bar on a Saturday night, over a stout in company with other degenerate wire-service hacks, I have been known to display fluent command of 'adult language' and provide the company with jokes well calculated to make old Billy himself blush with shame.

But in the company of people who do not approve of foul language, in the company of strangers, and in the company of children, I put a cap on it.

There is, of course, a type of adult language which can be used anywhere, anytime, in any company. One of my favourite examples is the old Frank Sinatra standard, 'Fly Me to the Moon'. For those experienced in space travel the words hold a great deal of meaning. For younger kids and elderly spinster aunts it's just a nice song. Boring, perhaps, but okay.

My grandfather was a master of the polite curse. He grew up in Belfast, and early on learned how to tell a British soldier to his face what he thought of him and be safely tucked up at home by the time the bloke had worked out the insult.

So if you happen to hear me tell someone 'sure an' ye must be the pride of your dear mother's life, lookin' as ye do to be the pick of the litter', then you'll know I'm using 'adult language'.

enjoyed.

a gift of words is always a treasure

thanks for the read

Sync

Hi Garza,

Easy read, very professional (IMO) and especially loved the last para... still chuckling.

Take care in Belize,

Ian

Sync - Thank you for your comment. I appreciate it.

Ian - Taking care wherever I've been has gotten me through nearly 50 years of wars, revolutions, and riots. It's been fun. Thanks for your comment.

I wont use any words here but you'll know what I mean when referring to 'it' being the most versatile word in the English language. No other word describes such an array of different circumstances or emotions. All words have their place, and I'm sure if 'it' didn't exist we'd be sometimes lost for words.

This was an enjoyable and short read. Good. My issues with it are more opinion-based because I have no idea what you're doing with "adult language" this, "adult language" that. It's not any more eloquent than saying "swear words" or "cusses." Also, if you'll swear in the company of anyone, I think it should apply to everyone else. Again, personal opinion. Sorry about that. But I do like this article, writing, work of literature, whatever you want to call it. Good job.

Haha, great stuff. Flows excellently, and has that friendly banter going on with the reader which always helps in articles. Made me laugh, too, and I like that from non-fiction pieces.

Very good job, Garza!

Originally Posted by garza

I tend to out potty and out gutter any assortment of 10-year-old foul mouths you care to assemble.

Bring it!

I take my hat off to you, I often forget to "cap it" when in the company of those who do not approve. Well written and a lesson to boot!

Pick of the litter

Well Garza you have been congratulated with your piece and as usual I would have no criticism of the writing even though the subject matter leaves me with an uneasy feeling.
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Belfast is the capital city of a province of the United Kingdom. Your grand dad would have held a passport, which declared him to be British with full rights of citizenship But no doubt he was a Catholic, as was his right to be.

The soldier was likewise a British citizen with identical civil rights. He may or may not have been a Catholic. Anyway as a British soldier his religion was irrelevant. The soldier would have signed up to be trained to kill and defend his country from all its enemies. The job he was doing in Northern Ireland was not what he had volunteered for. He had been posted there to keep apart the two factions namely the Protestants and the Catholics, who both held a insatiable appetite for wanting to kill each other. During his tour of duty he would be shot at, blown up, bombarded with bricks and regularly insulted not only by mindless criminals but with the active support of a whole segment of the population: men, women and children alike. “Sticks and stones could break his bones but words could never hurt him”. Or could they?

The squaddie would have had no real concern about being called a fornicator even in adult language.
If he had seen through the ambiguity of the expression ‘pick of the litter’ he might even have recognised the carefully constructed insult but he would have been bound by military discipline not to respond to a fellow citizen whom he was there to protect. He held the line.

The atmosphere on that far western isle is still not free of bigotry and a successor to that soldier may still be standing on guard. At least he and his colleagues deserve some respect.

Dv

As I read this back, I realise I am also guilty of subtle innuendo. I apologise.

Why do we call it 'adult language' when it is plainly juvenile?

Divus - Ulster was regarded by my grandfather as occupied territory that, along with all of Ireland, rightfully belonged to the Irish and not to the imported Scots. He believed, and he may have had a valid point, that Adolf Hitler got his idea of lebensraum from the alienation of Ulster Irish from their land. He never in his life recognised the right of the Scots or the English to be in Ulster.

He married a Scots girl, but there are some aspects of life which override politics and even cultural roots.

I well remember once coming home from school and asking him about Titanic. He became very angry, and asserted that while the Titanic and her sister ships were being built, Harland & Wolff shipyard had ten thousand men working, and not a single one was Irish. I've since learned that there were a few Irish, but not many.

As for 'fellow citizen', my grandfather denied that he ever was a citizen of Great Britain. He always said that an Irishman and an Englishman could never be citizens of the same country. He was born in 1865, married and moved to Dublin in 1882, and left Ireland for the U.S. in 1884. Both of my grandfathers were quite old by the time I was born, so the stories they told of their growing-up years were stories of the last half of the 19th century. By the mid 20th century much had changed, but the cultural divide remains to this day.

As for British soldiers putting up with verbal abuse, what you say is quite the opposite of the stories my grandfather told of Irish boys, even very young boys, being chased down and beaten when all they had done was call a soldier names. Rock throwing, of course, led to shooting, but words alone, according to gran'fa, were enough to trigger a beating.

Just a few years ago in Belize a British-trained soldier stationed here beat a 14-year-old to death for nothing more than a verbal insult. I was one of the reporters who covered the story. The boy who died was in a bar with another 14-year-old, his cousin, who happened to be the son of the then Prime Minister, Said Musa.

The feelings my grandfather had for the English went far beyond what you might call bigotry. Were you to tap the soul of a black man in the U.S. today to get his true opinion of white slave holders and their descendants, you might come close.

For all that he hated the English, he insisted I master the English language. He called it the language of oppression. Only a very powerful language, he said, could be used by a people as a tool to gain ascendancy over other peoples in the way the English had gained ascendancy over so much of the world, including Ireland. He died when I was ten years old, but his influence in my life continues to this day.

Ah, the polite curse. I know it well.

Nice piece. The only sentence I found fault with was "We all use those words, of course." I was taught not to, and don't to this day, thanks to my mom. She told me of the time she and a few of her "society" friends went to a restaurant downtown and encountered a surly waitress. I guess the sight of a group of well-dressed, well-coiffed black ladies upset the young, white waitress. She was rude and behaved quite badly, even tossing a menu at one of the ladies who requested one.

When the ladies calmly called her to task about her behavior (they had dealt with prejudice before), the waitress snarled at them and explained that she really didn't need this job. She explained that her boyfriend, who owned the restaurant, was able to put her up in a fancy hotel and that she only worked because she'd otherwise be bored. The older women were smart enough to know what was going on, and my mom coyly asked, "So you're a strumpet, then?" The waitress wasn't very bright, and she had no idea what my mom was talking about. She wandered away and Mom and her friends had a nice giggle at her expense.

Imagine what would have happened if Mom had called her a whore. Even though that's not technically a curse word, the unsophisticated waitress's response to it would have been very different indeed! Mom taught us not to lower ourselves just to make a point. I recoil when I hear women curse. I am accustomed to hearing men use foul language, and really appreciate it when they avoid using it around me.

Thank you Potty.
My point made, juvenile.

Divus - In looking back over your post, I realise that you are talking about a different era, indeed, a different century, from the days of my grandfather's childhood and youth.

The 'adult language' with which my grandfather taunted English soldiers was more complicated than the simple 'pick of the litter' example I used. Very often the taunts were conveyed in conversation between two Irish lads as they passed a soldier. A friend and I did the same sort of thing to U.S. Air Force personnel a few years after the end of WWII when we were ten or 11 years old. Passing an airman in the street I might ask Jimmy, 'Was your daddy a war hero?' and he would answer 'No, he was in the Air Force'.

Blatant obscenities and vulgarities do not constitute adult language.

Originally Posted by garza

When talking to myself I tend to out potty and out gutter any assortment of 10-year-old foul mouths you care to assemble.

"out-potty" and "out-gutter" both take a hyphen.