It is like it's an accent. A dialect. Perhaps, in the small town where I live babies speak their first sentences peppered with it. It's not Fire Truck.
A light bulb came on for me today about how the people I interact with, speak. You see, I just spent five days in another city. A larger city. I spent a lot of time downtown with a variety of people: business people, vacationers, homeless people, gangbangers and teenagers. There were the elderly dealing with advancing age and mobility issues. People who are busy, some who have very little, lots who are frustrated in ways big and small. Some of the time I spent in the hospital where I met people in very high stress situations: people who were losing and had just lost family. People who had friends and family members admitted for long stretches of time. The families I met at the hospital had every reason to swear. I spent time other places too. The mall, stores, restaurants even cabs and city buses. I don't remember hearing that one word, not even once. Or any of his less offensive younger cousins.
I hardly noticed when I was there but there was something missing. That accent. In the whole time I was in London, Ontario I didn't hear anyone punctuate their sentence with an eff bomb. In fact, I would be hard pressed to say that I heard anyone swear even once.
Now, I certainly cannot say that no one swears in the city. That would be an effing ridiculous statement. What I can say is that I returned home to my apartment today and within ten minutes had opened my balcony door. Floating up to me in the warmish night air were the dulcet tones of my neighbours having what passes for a normal everyday conversation around here.
It went something like this: " And then I effing told him that he effing needed to make an effing call. They are not going to effing fix his effing car if he doesn't effing tell them when he effing wants it done." It went on longer but I am sure you get the drift. Ah, there's that local dialect again. I must be home.
Mind you, I wasn't witnessing an argument. The conversation was not heated or debated. Just one man passing along a story about his day to another. I wish I could say that it is an isolated thing but it is not. This is the way a lot of people speak here. A chat on the bus, a conversation at work, a simple coffee order at the local Tim's......pretty much every day, multiple times a day you witness this use of vulgar language. Even in schoolkids, teenagers and the elderly. Wow, I would say especially amongst the middleaged population.
So I ask why. I was raised mostly in Niagara and Stratford. I really do not remember it there. No one felt the only way to be heard was to salt our speech with nasty epithets. Truth, most of the people I knew spoke plainly or eloquently with no swearing at all. Sure, there were a few people who threw in the occasional "bad" word. They thought they were rebels and we mostly laughed at them for how stupid it sounded. Oooh, big man said a bad word.....I'm shaking. With mirth.
Does it bother me? Not on a moral level but it is tiresome to hear daily. Being around it I find myself slipping into this habit. That, in and of itself, bothers me quite a bit. After spending most of my life with pretty good verbal hygiene I don't like being infected with the local accent. I fight it consciously but it is slipping in.
It's annoying to hear the kindergarteners speaking this way- and they do. There is so much more to say. More productive things, more positive, more useful words. It is frustrating to try to deal with an individual's concerns when their go-to method of communicating is so inherently disrespectful to both the listener and speaker. I wonder if no one ever taught any of them how to make a valid point with clear emphatic language and tone.
I also wonder if they kiss their Mothers with those dirty mouths. Bet Momma would be proud.
A light bulb came on for me today about how the people I interact with, speak. You see, I just spent five days in another city. A larger city. I spent a lot of time downtown with a variety of people: business people, vacationers, homeless people, gangbangers and teenagers. There were the elderly dealing with advancing age and mobility issues. People who are busy, some who have very little, lots who are frustrated in ways big and small. Some of the time I spent in the hospital where I met people in very high stress situations: people who were losing and had just lost family. People who had friends and family members admitted for long stretches of time. The families I met at the hospital had every reason to swear. I spent time other places too. The mall, stores, restaurants even cabs and city buses. I don't remember hearing that one word, not even once. Or any of his less offensive younger cousins.
I hardly noticed when I was there but there was something missing. That accent. In the whole time I was in London, Ontario I didn't hear anyone punctuate their sentence with an eff bomb. In fact, I would be hard pressed to say that I heard anyone swear even once.
Now, I certainly cannot say that no one swears in the city. That would be an effing ridiculous statement. What I can say is that I returned home to my apartment today and within ten minutes had opened my balcony door. Floating up to me in the warmish night air were the dulcet tones of my neighbours having what passes for a normal everyday conversation around here.
It went something like this: " And then I effing told him that he effing needed to make an effing call. They are not going to effing fix his effing car if he doesn't effing tell them when he effing wants it done." It went on longer but I am sure you get the drift. Ah, there's that local dialect again. I must be home.
Mind you, I wasn't witnessing an argument. The conversation was not heated or debated. Just one man passing along a story about his day to another. I wish I could say that it is an isolated thing but it is not. This is the way a lot of people speak here. A chat on the bus, a conversation at work, a simple coffee order at the local Tim's......pretty much every day, multiple times a day you witness this use of vulgar language. Even in schoolkids, teenagers and the elderly. Wow, I would say especially amongst the middleaged population.
So I ask why. I was raised mostly in Niagara and Stratford. I really do not remember it there. No one felt the only way to be heard was to salt our speech with nasty epithets. Truth, most of the people I knew spoke plainly or eloquently with no swearing at all. Sure, there were a few people who threw in the occasional "bad" word. They thought they were rebels and we mostly laughed at them for how stupid it sounded. Oooh, big man said a bad word.....I'm shaking. With mirth.
Does it bother me? Not on a moral level but it is tiresome to hear daily. Being around it I find myself slipping into this habit. That, in and of itself, bothers me quite a bit. After spending most of my life with pretty good verbal hygiene I don't like being infected with the local accent. I fight it consciously but it is slipping in.
It's annoying to hear the kindergarteners speaking this way- and they do. There is so much more to say. More productive things, more positive, more useful words. It is frustrating to try to deal with an individual's concerns when their go-to method of communicating is so inherently disrespectful to both the listener and speaker. I wonder if no one ever taught any of them how to make a valid point with clear emphatic language and tone.
I also wonder if they kiss their Mothers with those dirty mouths. Bet Momma would be proud.
