Now frequent visitors to this site will have noticed that I'm not averse to a bit of
strong language. Everyone has their own opinions on swearing. Some find it disrespectful and
offensive. Others regard it as a sign that the user has a limited vocabulary. I don't know
quite how this argument would go. Just have the thesaurus handy next time you bang your elbow
on a door handle or drop a pile of neatly stacked and alphabetasized papers. Others,
mainly pseudo-linguists, are eager to reclaim the words from our Anglo-Saxon heritage, and
can quote you examples of Chaucer's use of words which would be worth a 50p contribution
to any office's swear box.
Personally, I find that there are some situations where nothing says it quite like "bollocks".
Go on, say it now. Listen to the way it bursts from the mouth and rolls off the tongue. It's a
little explosion of a sound that stops internal combustion in times of stress. But let me
get this straight... I would never swear in the classroom, which, at times, takes all
the self-restraint I possess. In fact, being a frequent swearer, one of the most difficult
obstacles I had to overcome when I first started teaching was to eliminate such words from
my conversations, which meant that I mostly spoke very slowly at first, sieving the words as
they tried to tumble off my tongue.
I soon learned some substitution techniques. "For goodness sake" was my watered down version of "For f***'s sake", "Oh dear" replaced "Bollocks", and so on. But something that I'm still perplexed about is where to draw the line. TV companies and radio stations have their own lists of prohibited and restricted words, which include words that can be used in rationed amounts. But it seems in schools that there are no hard and fast rules.
There are so many different situations where swearing is a potential or actual problem.
Kids who grow up with families who swear all the time are immune to its power to shock, and
use swear words in their conversations too. Other kids are well aware of the power of the
four letter word, and try it out with their mates in the corridors and playground. Where should
a teacher draw the line? Many will remind children in their class about choosing suitable
language for a situation, unless the swear word is directed at the teacher as an insult.
Others, often weary and battle-worn, have learned the art of "see no evil, hear no evil" and
close their ears and eyes to anything happening in corridors and the back corner of the
classroom that is not affecting them personally.
One school that I worked in had a teacher who would scream in a child's face about "the
language of the gutter" if she heard them utter anything she found offensive. In another
school, I chastised a member of my class who said that something was "crap". I asked them to
choose another word instead, and when they questioned why, I told them that they should
answer without swearing. The pupil was genuinely confused by this. "But crap isn't
a swear word," was the reply. "Mr S (the PE teacher) calls us crap all the time."
So here lies the problem. Which words should be on the banned list for classrooms, and even corridors? There are some obvious candidates, but also more and more words, like "crap", are slipping into a murky grey area. Time and time again, teachers are reminded that rule setting has to be a fair process. Most classrooms have a set of rules displayed on the wall so that the pupils know what is expected of them. After all, you can't win the game if you don't know the rules. But would a sign saying "Use suitable language" be too vague?
Meanwhile, after a day of minding my own language, the expletives jostle for space once I sink down in my favourite armchair, or even during my drive home, should some bastard try to cut me up. Swear words take the place of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Versatile little things. That's the power of language.
added 20/3/04
© Copyright laws apply to the contents of this website. 2004