Proper Language?

20 Feb 1996
Jim Maroon

Well, my Oilers are moving to Tennessee (Nashville Oilers?), but my Cowboys will be here forever. Maybe it has something to do with a winning tradition. :-)

But to your point. Yes, there are many ways to say the same thing. But to say "it sucks" has a more visceral feel to it than many alternative phrases. Perhaps this is a class issue. Growing up as I did in a lower class home, having spent time as a blue collar worker and a US Marine, a peppering of profanity in language is perhaps more commonplace than it is in middle class homes. My experience was that it makes language more colorful and passionate, and often more meaningful in some ways. Certainly in a book it often makes it more realistic.

Authors need to use the words that best fit the situation and environment. There was a controversy at a school near here about The Last Mission, a book about a WWII bomber squadron in which, during a certain critical moment as a young man was releasing the payload, certain expletives were used, among them the Mother of All Swear Words, the infamous "F-word". I can't think of a word or series of words that would have better expressed the natural sentitment of that bombardier at that particular moment. "Ah, darn!" just doesn't quite cut it.

On the book in question, the school board removed the book, but after a massive outcry from the community they put it back, claiming they really didn't mean it. Two board members lost their seats as a direct result of the removal. Things here in Texas aren't as bad as some appear to believe.

Karla Walters wrote:
"I think, however, that vernacular expressions do "DATE" more than do story line, character, and conflict. Students know a YA book is out of date if the slang used is dated. They laugh at words like "groovy" today, and in ten or twenty years kids will probably laugh at books with language like "sucks". Perhaps by then they will be expecting the F-word. That's why I think quality literature--which will last more than one generation--should not be heavily sprinkled with slang terms and obscenities."

Well, now. Shakespeare's quality literature is exceedingly heavily riddled with slang terms and obscenities, and appears to have lasted for just a little bit more than one generation, methinks. Thus you are hoist on your own petard, Karla. ("Hoist on one's own petard": blown up by one's own explosion, understood in Shakersperare's time as a reference to farting, I've been told.)

But more to the point: why would we want to include the characteristic of not becoming dated in a definition of what "quality literature" is? The idea bothers me because it suggests that books which less accurately represent reality AS we live it and experience it and hear its language are, somehow, more realistic, and more important and have more "quality." That seems backwards to me.

I'd like to believe that the best fiction captures a segment of lived reality as a particular human experiences it and understands it, so completely and so truthfully that it remains of interest to others long after the specific language it uses to capture its moment in time becomes dated. Shakespeare is interesting because of his accurate capturing of slang and everything else that is specifically of his time, not in spite of those things. Simialry F Scott Fitgzerald and his flapper lingo. Similarly Beatrix Potter and her deliciously tart little Britishisms. Similarly Salinger and Louise Fitzhugh.

If young readers find a book irrevelant because it uses words like "groovy," I'd be prepared to wager either that they're being incredibly and narrowly egocentric in their reading tastes and strategies, or else that the book containing the word "groovy" is shallow and irrevelant in other, more important ways as well, and maybe always was. It's a long-standing truism of literary study that fiction can best arrive at widely interesting truths about being human, not by generalizing out the specifics of language and culture in order to arrive at generally true depictions (for surely there's no such thing as a generally true depiction), but instead, by focusing on the particular and describing it in particualrly accurate detail--including the way people use "bad" language to annoy and delight each other.

In other words: particular is groovy, but generalizing sucks.

Karla Walters wrote:
"For example, I tell my high school students I will not allow bathroom language to comprise the language of discourse in my classes. Yet today, so many kids use language I think is very offensive, such as referring to anyting they dislike a something that "sucks"."

To tell the truth, I think it is so pervasive that many of them don't even know what it originally meant, or if they do it doesn't cross their minds. I don't think it occurs to them to ask, "Sucks what?" To them, it means "It stinks!", which no more refers something's aroma than the current term refers to a sexual act.

Now, to your example... surely you don't think such language in a book for young adults necessarily means it is less than quality literature? When we look at excellence, we should be looking for things like storyline, characterization, relevance, etc. But even if you are talking about books that appeal to the lowest common denominator, shouldn't we stock them, as well? (That was rhetorical, Karla. I think I know your answer to that.)

"In the Sunday Seattle Times a reporter interviewed a groupd of students from a conservative religious school that happens to be right next to the Seattle Seahawks training campus. The issue they were discussing was the proposed move of the Seahawks NFL team to Los Angeles. Most of the students inteviewed said the proposed move "sucks." "

Well... it does. :-)

Of course, most kids don't realize what's offensive about the term, but I think a few of them do. We definitely need to teach them more about levels of discourse and WHY some language is inappropriate, not just THAT it is inappropriate, but the subject needs to be approached carefully,like one needs to teach other sensitive subjects carefully. Maybe that's why few teachers voluntarily discuss such language in depth with students.

"To tell the truth, I think it is so pervasive that many of them don't even know what it originally meant, or if they do it doesn't cross their minds. I don't think it occurs to them to ask, "Sucks what?" To them, it means "It stinks!", which no more refers something's aroma than the current term refers to a sexual act."

I think, however, that vernacular expressions do "DATE" more than do story line, character, and conflict. Students know a YA book is out of date if the slang used is dated. They laugh at words like "groovy" today, and in ten or twenty years kids will probably laugh at books with language like "sucks". Perhaps by then they will be expecting the F-word. That's why I think quality literature--which will last more than one generation--should not be heavily sprinkled with slang terms and obscenities.

"Now, to your example... surely you don't think such language in a book for young adults necessarily means it is less than quality literature? When we look at excellence, we should be looking for things like storyline, characterization, relevance, etc. "

But even if you are talking about books " that appeal to the lowest common denominator, shouldn't we stock them, as well? (That was rhetorical, Karla. I think I know your answer to that.)"

Of course we should stock them, but as a teacher I also feel the need to teach my students standards for SELECTION so they can understand, when they become adults, that there are such standards. Otherwise the next generation of school boards and parents will be incredibly ignorant.

"to the Seattle Seahawks training campus. The issue they were discussing was the proposed move of the Seahawks NFL team to Los Angeles. Most of the students inteviewed said the proposed move "sucks." Well... it does. :-)"

The move is insane, money-grubbing, idiotic, irritating, devastating, irrational, and threatening to every city that has an existing franchise. In fact, I can already visualize a good writing assignment for my students on ways to express the dastardly nature of the move without resorting to "sucks".

Judith Landesman says:
"At the same time a young mind is so impressionable and it seems such a shame to fill up our childrens minds with filth when they could be introduced to the wealth of knowledge thet there is out there for them."

and also:
"There is so much filth in todays world a little censoship would not do to much harm to anyone. That is just my opinion the children of today are the leaders of tomorrow it would be a great service if they were with cleaner minds. and hogher morals. if censoring what they read is a way to accomplish that then i am all for it!!"

I've always found these dirt and cleanliness metaphors fascinating, and I'm intrigued by their implications. Why is "filthy" language "filthy" anyway? Because it dirties up a clean mind the way litter dirties up a clean house? Do we actually want our minds to be clean in the way that houses and room are clean? It sems strange that we want to think of our minds as household spaces, and to see some language as furniture that belongs there and some language as dirt or clutter or mess that gets in the way of the orderly efficency of it all. What if instead we thought of our minds in terms of nature metaphors? Then you"d need the dirt in there to plant the good ideas in and help them to grow. Get rid of the dirt and the seeds will remain dormant? Censorship iof "dirt" leads to intellecual dormancy?

And in any case, does having "dirty" thoughts actually prevent your mind from working efficiently? The dirt clogs up the mental works? Not, I have to say, in my personal experience. My head is filled with filth, and it hasn't prevented me from being, in my own little and flthy-minded way, a thoughtful person. The dirt helps the crops to grow.

And why specifically are thoughts about bodily matters like poop and sex "dirty"? Because a clean mind is a disembodied one, and anything physical and bodily is equiivalent to dust and grime intruding into a space where they don't belong? Now that's a pretty depressing view of what it means to be human--keep your dirt in your jeans and you'll be safe from having your brain contaminated by your filthy psyical needs. You'll be clean, clean, clean, immaculate, deodorized, disinfected, vacuumed out, sterile. Your mind will be like fresh laundry--rinsed out and flat and softened.

Or maybe I've got it wrong. Maybe the dirt in my head is preventing me from seeing clearly. In that case, maybe somebody can tell me what "filthy" actually does mean anyway, in the context of a mind?

I agree with Karla Walter's point of trying to get kids into explaining issues on deeper levels of discourse. The problem with this type of language is that it begins to limit ones ability to explain anger, frustration, etc. But the children are only a reflection of the society that they live in. They listen to the adults and follow suit.

Jim,

I think you brought up an important point when you discussed the issue of class. It's something a lot of people don't think about. We recognize difference in speaking styles between males and females (lots of pop psych books published on that subject during the past several years) and between blacks and whites (remember Black Vernacular English or whatever academia called it?). We also realize people in different parts of the United States speak differently (words and slang as well as accent). So, thanks for bringing up the issue, Jim.

Perry:

Sometimes the word "filth" suggests pestilence, which is dangerous to one's health. I think that's the metaphoric spin the word takes when it is used regarding language. Like garbage, some language can, at times, attract rats...

21 Feb 1996
Connie Healey

We often don't give children enough credit for recognizing when the dialogue is authentic and genuine as opposed to forced. When reading aloud I cannot allow myself to change an authors wwords, lest I cast myself in the role of a censor. I find that students don't bat an eye or react in inappropriate ways (giggle,etc.) if the dialogue is perceived as authentic. We have discussed this at times after a read aloud. Their comments usually run to the effect that while they might not chose to use that particular language (or maybe they would), it was fitting that the character did. They have ALL heard such language and will continue to. What exactly are we protecting them from by censoring the written language?

"I was once told, that the use of offensive language was the sign of a bad vocabulary! Debra Jowett :')"

My aunt told me that once, but some smartaxx kid, I mean some precocious youth countered by telling me that refusing to use colorful language would limit my vocaabulary.

I'm glad this subject came up, because it's a hot one at my 4-5 elementary.

A lot of us are reading Paulsen's "Harris and Me" which contains a lot of swearing. One teacher sent a letter home saying that she'd be reading the book in class, it contained a lot of swearing, but the language was central to the character. No one asked that their child be removed.

Another teacher tried to bleep her way through the dialog, leaving in a few of the words for emphasis. Again, no reaction from parents.

Another just read the book, swear words and all. Again, no reaction from parents.

I am the librarian, and the book has an enormous reserve list. I decided to be candid with students when they check it out. I tell them that there's a lot of cussing, but they need to look at the character....he's a kid coming from a military background, and that's probably the way most of the adults around him talked, and he's just imitating what he's heard.

I'm holding our book fair this week, and when parents are in the library and the kids want the book, I offer the same disclaimer to the parents. Not one has put it back on the shelf. And I called in a hefty replacement order this evening. We're running low on stock.

(Do you think the fact that I confess that it's also the funniest book I've read in years makes a difference? I laughed until I cried the first time I read it. When I booktalked it, I made sure I told them about the scene about the boy peeing on the electric fence.)

24 Feb 96
Monica R. Edinger

..now I have to speak, I love "Harris and Me"! It is a wonderful read-aloud. I don't see how one could bleep out Harris's cussing -might as well bleep out his sister wacking him every time he uses a dirty word. What about the first paragraph about the narrator's parents drinking themselves into oblivion? What about the dirty pictures? What about constant injuries? Boy, don't bother with it if you aren't brave enough to read it as it is! Harris is a cussing, wild, boy and drags the more reserved narrator into all his craziness; the writing is wonderful. Clearly, Paulsen knows of what he writes. Presumably it is autobiographical. I just love it. I have a Japanese child in my class and we all talked about the commie Japs, what that game was all about. Actually Harris uses the words only because of Louie - they are empy words to him and that is a perfect way to talk about what would be comparable today. Actually, part of the fun of reading it aloud for me is the frisson of shock from my students when I actually read those questionable words.

I too loved this book and laughed until there were tears running down my face. The funny thing is, I read it about 2 years ago, and didn't even remember that there was any offensive language. Perhaps this is because I wasn't offended by it and it therefore made no impression on me or because the book has so many other things to be remembered for.

As to children's exposure to naughty words, I'm reminded of a bit George Carlin did many years ago called the seven dirty words you can't say on television. Well we are down to two and those will be going soon.

I have also read this book and got a great kick out of it. I did pay attention to all the bad language that was being used, but the book was so funny that I guess I kind of let it pass.

It's such a funny book, it's a shame that the author had to use naughty words. If he left them out it still would be a great book.

Perhaps Paulsen, like many other fine writers, believes that conveying experience and people honestly matters more than being "nice." That means having kid characters sound like real kids rather than 60's sitcoms.

Another fine writer, Chris Crutcher, says this: "The truth screams to be told in its own language."

Like Huck Finn, I don't think I'd find heaven very interesting if they only let in the nice folks.