Promotional material for a new book crossed the desk recently. Cuss Control: The Complete Book on How to Curb Your Cursing was tucked between a news release on E. coli and an edition of Pool People, so no one took it personally.
If anyone curses around here, there is usually a malfunctioning computer involved. Otherwise the air is fairly clean.
The book purports to provide advice to stop use of profanity. Says author James V. O’Connor, “swearing is so commonplace, even in public, that many people think it is accepted, but it is only tolerated.”
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There is a goodly number of crusty ranchers and dusty farmers out there who can turn the air blue with a phrase. Swear words for some are merely a method of self-expression, with no offence intended.
On the other hand, the occasional curse can get a point across with more emphasis than would otherwise be possible.
This is the distinction O’Connor makes. He says there are two types of swearing: casual, which he deems lazy language often coupled with a negative attitude; and causal, the kind that is provoked by emotion.
Examples: “Hi, Bob, how the @#$% are you?” is casual cursing. But when the heifers veer away from an open gate and head for the back 40, it’s causal cursing you will hear.
Once in awhile around here, reporters will use quotes that include swear words spoken by an interviewee. It almost always prompts discussion about whether the word should remain, as evidence of a strong emotion or as an indicator of the speaker’s personality, or whether the word should instead be indicated by an ellipses (…) or whether the quote should be paraphrased.
We treat such instances on a case by case basis, but you’ve probably noticed there aren’t a lot of curses in the Producer. Most often we opt for a paraphrase or an ellipses. (“I don’t give a … how it happens, I need money to run my farm,” he said.)
Number of dots doesn’t necessarily indicate the number of letters in the curse word, although some newspapers use dashes in place of profanity, with each dash representing a missing letter.
I hasten to say the ellipses in the Open Forum section are not examples of penpal potty mouth. Those ones indicate that text has been removed, to reduce letter length.
That’s the truth, I swear it.
