On Bad Words
This post flows naturally from a string of posts I wrote earlier this year: Intention and Interpretation. In those posts, I talked about the role intention plays in society and interpretation. Today, I want to talk about Bad Words. Yes, vulgarities, expletives, curses, cusses – whatever you call them. Numerous families – mine included – forbid their children from speaking the Words in the home (famously, some parents order their offspring to suck on a bar of soap to cleanse their mouths of the "dirt"). They are offensive enough to warrant detentions in schools when spoken by a student, and they are offensive enough to warrant stern glares on one's first day of gymnastics.
"We don't say that here," said the coach. One of the older kids also reprimanded me: "Yeah, seriously?!" I was hurt by their words, and my face must have showed it because a few seconds later, the coach commented, "Maybe he didn't know." I truly didn't. I actually had no idea that the phrase "what the hell" was considered inappropriate. I said "what the heck" all the time at school and at home and no one seemed to care. I am unsure where I acquired the phrase "what the hell", but I didn't see how it was any different than "what the heck". All I wanted to know was what the triangular prism-shaped foam block was used for, and I thought that "What the hell is that!?" would have been a perfect way to express my curiosity. In fact, it was the first time I had ever been told that certain words were forbidden to be spoken – the infamous Bad Words.
I eventually became aware of more Bad Words. Fortunately for me, figuring out that those words were bad was not as embarrassing as the day at gymnastics. I shared my discovery of Bad Words with my friends, who shared their own discoveries with me. (I cannot remember attending a second day of gymnastics. I think I might have quit voluntarily, but not because of the Bad Word incident – gymnastics really wasn't just a huge playground for kids.) Soon, I had a list of forbidden words in my head, and we started referring to them by their first letters: the "A word" (ass), the "B word" (bitch), the "D word" (damn), the "S word" (shit). Hell became "H E double hockey sticks" because the capital Ls looked like hockey sticks. Somehow we became aware that the "F word" (fuck) was the dirtiest, most offensive of them all.
I like to think I grew up a fairly well-behaved kid in elementary school. I did disrupt class occasionally, but that was because I wanted to be, for some reason, the class comedian. I enjoyed making others laugh, and sometimes that meant doing some stupid, self-deprecating stuff. (That'll probably be several stories for my School series.) But rarely—if ever—did I do something with the prior knowledge that it might get me into trouble. If I ever hurt someone's feelings, I aimed to be the first person to say sorry. And that still holds true today: the best way to ruin my day – or more precisely, to put me in a bad mood of indeterminate length – is to reject my apology. Guilt always overwhelms me. When I say I am sorry, I really do mean it. As a result of this mentality, I resolved early on to avoid Bad Words, even when teachers and parents weren't around. Normally, I simply substituted the Words with more mild, euphemistic ones: heck, crap, frick. But even those I used conservatively. I would sometimes directly say "beep" in the place of an expletive, since all the reality TV shows replaced the Words with beeps. Even the two-word phrase "what the" was touchy. One of my classmates – who ended up becoming one of my best friends – said simply "what the" in the presence of my third grade teacher, and my teacher exploded. "When you say ‘WHAT THE', what you really mean is ‘WHAT THE HELL'!" My poor friend began to cry. As this case points out, Bad Words seemed to be used most often during conflicts where someone's feelings were hurt, and I hated hurting feelings.
There were lapses in this mentality, however, because I naturally also wanted to feel like I fit in. I wanted to be the class comedian because I wanted people to genuinely like me. Standing out was great, but a degree of restraint was necessary: no one wanted to be friends with someone who wasn't like them at all. I learned that although Bad Words are often offensive, they can also be used lightheartedly, especially among friends whom you are close to. There was a certain thrill to be had when we said the Words among ourselves in private. Doing so brought us closer together because it requires both understanding (knowing each other well enough that we are sure no offense will be taken) and trust (trust not to tell the grown-ups that we said those forbidden words) – key elements of friendship.
It was in fourth grade at recess when we formed the "Bad Word Club". At the time, I was with what I now like to call the "original Friend Circle". The original Circle consisted of four members: me and three others. I wrote about the fascinating formation of our Circle in my post last year about Little Things. The Bad Word Club consisted of three members of the original Friend Circle; we would later regard the one abstainer as the most mature person in the situation. The Bad Word Club was the brainchild of the person whom we would all later regard as the most immature person in the situation (including the person himself). Basically, to get into this top-secret, exclusive club, you simply had to say three Bad Words of your choice. The founder of the club didn't hesitate at all to initiate himself: "hell, damn, ass!" As for me, I was very uncomfortable about giving into my friend's antics, so I tried to joke about it, saying three consecutive "beep"s, each at a different pitch. My immature friend wouldn't have it – he demanded that I say three real Bad Words. "Crap, shoot, frick?" No, like actual ones. I looked to my mature friend, who shrugged and said matter-of-factly that this was the stupidest thing that he's ever seen. The immature friend taunted, "You're just too afraid to say the Words!" Again, my mature friend shrugged, denying that he was scared but maintaining that this was the stupidest thing he's ever seen. Then, the same friend of mine who got in trouble for saying "what the" – and whom we would later regard as the most naïve person in the situation – shocked us all by declaring what we all considered the worst Bad Words in existence: "fuck, shit, bitch!" Eventually, I relented to the peer pressure – conveniently, I forget exactly what my own initiation words were (my best guess is “ass, hell, bitch”, but that’s what it is and always will be: a guess). My mature friend just kept shrugging. We all forgot about the Bad Word Club the next day, and we rarely talked about it again.
Later in fourth grade, it started raining one day just before recess, so we had recess indoors. Normally, the combination of lunch and recess for the students was the midday break for the teachers. Unless, as in this case, there was bad weather, recess was generally outdoors, so a teacher could typically expect classrooms to be empty during the midday break. Apparently, teachers used this time to casually converse with each other without the ears of little children. Unfortunately, the lexicon of grown-up casual conversations typically includes Bad Words. So, we were all playing indoors for recess this one day, and then suddenly, our elementary school guidance counsellor – the one who was supposed to lead by example and teach us etiquette, the values of friendship, and respect – burst into the room, screaming, "HOLY SHIT!" She had undoubtedly expected the classroom to be as empty as it usually was during outdoor recess, but her face paled as she took in the stares of 22 equally pale young faces. Our fourth-grade teacher covered her face with a hand in embarrassment, and one of my classmates started to whimper. In the end, the situation was more awkward than anything else. Our counsellor apologized profusely, claiming that "even grown-ups make mistakes".
As we kept maturing into late elementary school, middle school, and high school, it slowly became more acceptable to use some Bad Words in everyday speech. A turning point came in the sophomore year of high school, when my AP United States History teacher gave us a test "for shits and giggles" on the first day of school. As more and more of my peers began utilizing Bad Words, I started to reevaluate my own abstinence on them. I began to mutter the Words under my breath whenever something annoying or frustrating or otherwise negative happened, but I continued to abstain from saying them out loud (with the occasional lapse, of course, in some peer pressure or extreme situations).
And then in January 2015, British actor Benedict Cumberbatch slipped up on live television by referring to non-white actors as "coloured". Using the term "coloured" in this fashion is considered outdated and even offensive by some – it might very well be a Bad Word. Cumberbatch said the Word in the context of a question over whether non-white actors unfairly face greater challenges in the film industry, to which he answered: "I think as far as coloured actors go, it gets really different in the UK, and a lot of my friends have had more opportunities here [in America] than in the UK, and that’s something that needs to change." Cumberbatch apologized upon learning of his mistake, stating, "I’m devastated to have caused offence by using this outmoded terminology. I offer my sincere apologies. I make no excuse for my being an idiot and know the damage is done."
The public's reaction to Cumberbatch's faux pas tended to realize that Cumberbatch did not sincerely intend to harm anyone, since the overall meaning of the sentence, setting aside the Word, is far from racist. According to The Guardian:
A spokesperson for the anti-racism charity Show Racism the Red Card, told the Independent: “Benedict Cumberbatch has highlighted a very important issue within the entertainment industry and within society. In doing so, he has also inadvertently highlighted the issue of appropriate terminology and the evolution of language.” They added that the organisation feels the term “has the potential to cause offence due to the connotations associated with the term and its historical usage”.I mentioned earlier that this post would be a continuation of my earlier posts on Intention and Interpretation. As I came to reflect on Cumberbatch's incident, I began to wonder, what exactly makes a Bad Word offensive: the word itself or the way that it is used? Is intention relevant?
The manner in which the Words are said does seem to be relevant. We are more likely to forgive a close friend who says the Words to us in jest than someone deliberately uses them against us as expressions of hate, anger, and spite.
On the other hand, the acceptability of using a Bad Word varies in different contexts. Part of the context is the identity of the speaker. Schoolchildren – who are often considered by society to be bastions of innocence – are admonished not to say Bad Words because the words are most often associated with contexts of vulgarity and incivility. However, it remains that these words can be used casually too. It would be far more shocking to hear a five- or six-year-old casually jest, "Ah, fuck you", than a twenty-two-year-old college senior casually jesting the same phrase to a fellow senior. Instead, children are encouraged by society to avoid these expressions entirely. Also part of the context is the audience of the speaker. A college senior saying a Bad Word within the earshot of elementary schoolchildren – even if it was done in lighthearted jest – would typically also be considered inappropriate. Location is also relevant. Although judges might frequently curse in areas outside of their courtroom, it is far less acceptable for judges to conduct themselves on the bench with vulgarities in every other sentence.
In some jurisdictions, it is unlawful to speak aloud Bad Words in public places, especially in a deliberately derogatory manner. In 1942, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously held in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire that certain, narrowly limited categories of speech may be criminalized by states and are not protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits laws that abridge the freedom of speech.
These [categories of speech] include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or "fighting" words those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.The Chaplinsky decision is interesting because it expressly states that it is the "very utterance" of such "fighting words" that "inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace". Essentially, the "badness" of Bad Words can be derived from the mere act of saying them aloud, no matter what their manner or context is. The badness is inherent in the Words themselves. This inherence becomes apparent when we examine why it is that aspects of context influence the interpretation of Bad Words. As I picked up in elementary school and as Justice Frank Murphy pointed out in the majority opinion for Chaplinsky, Bad Words are associated with hurting the feelings of others, and that association – that connotation – is exactly why the innocent schoolchildren are admonished for uttering them (and why adults are looked down upon for uttering them in the presence of schoolchildren), and it is exactly why I chose to abstain from them for so long.
—Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942)
This inherent provocativeness of a word can overrule the intention of the speaker when the two come into conflict, as Benedict Cumberbatch discovered on live television. From the context, it is unequivocal that Cumberbatch did not mean to cause offense or hurt anyone's feelings, but the utterance of the word "colored" itself – the inherent badness of the word – was enough to provoke public censure. The word has connotations to the era of racial segregation, especially in the United States. The memories and feelings evoked by the word have made the word outdated, replaced by newer words that convey the same meaning, but do not evoke those negative feelings of that prejudicial period in history. Indeed, Cumberbatch himself did not defend his use of the word; he conceded that it was inappropriate, deserving of condemnation.
On the other hand, the intention of the speaker can also sometimes outweigh a word’s inherent provocativeness, causing the use to be considered acceptable. On Tuesday, May 21, 2013, Apple CEO Tim Cook, along with CFO Peter Oppenheimer and Phillip Bullock, head of tax operations, testified before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations regarding whether Apple’s tax payment practices constituted tax avoidance. Cook and his associates were grilled with challenging, complicated questions by Senator Carl Levin (D-Michigan), the subcommittee's chairman, and Senator John McCain (R-Arizona), the subcommittee's ranking member. It was a stressful and tense atmosphere throughout the whole hearing, one which Sen. McCain tried to alleviate. At the end of the tense hearing, McCain announced that he was out of time but had one more question, directed to Cook: “What I really wanted to ask is why the hell I have to keep updating apps on my iPhone all the time, and why you don’t fix that.” The magic worked. The officials in the room laughed, and Cook astutely responded that it was because they were "trying to make them better all the time.” The word “hell” is not the most offensive of Bad Words—although it’s one that could certainly land a first grader into trouble on their first day of gymnastics—and its use here injected just enough levity to loosen up the nerves without undermining the seriousness of the proceeding. The context and McCain's intentions overruled the inherent badness of the word “hell”, which was already mild to begin with.
The social acceptability of uttering a Bad Word is therefore determined by analyzing the relationship between the context of the utterance, which includes the speaker’s intentions, and the strength of the word’s inherent provocativeness. The extent to which a given context vindicates the use of a Bad Word depends on your beliefs. There are no hard and fast rules.
Words shed light on a person’s feelings, but Bad Words tend to blur how a speaker actually feels because the the Words themselves are distracting. Benedict Cumberbatch’s case epitomizes this. Cumberbatch clearly did not mean to offend anyone. In fact, the statement in which he used the word actually defends the very group of people the word would most likely offend. Cumberbatch did the right thing by admitting his folly and apologizing for it. The right thing for us to do is to forgive him. Although the inherent provocativeness of the word “colored” might outweigh Cumberbatch’s intentions with regards to the appropriateness of the word’s use, Cumberbatch’s intentions, in my view, certainly outweigh the provocativeness when we decide whether to forgive him or to continue to hold his mistake against him. Of course, if Cumberbatch repeatedly makes the mistake despite repeated apology, we can say that he is careless, but Cumberbatch made the mistake once and expressed his genuine regret for it.
I think that the world would be a more friendly, less stressful place if we all spent more time thinking about what the other person is intending to say, rather than dwelling on the specific words they use. If their intention is to offend you, to hurt your feelings, to incite injury or an immediate breach of the peace, then it is unacceptable. But keep in mind that what makes these words “bad” is their association with offensiveness and with hurting feelings. Set aside the word for just a moment and think about the bigger picture—the context. Is it really their intention to offend you, to attack you personally, or are they really just annoyed at the situation? Oftentimes, their intention is not to cause harm with their words, but, perhaps, to draw attention towards harm being done. Yes, intention matters. In more ways than one.