Opinion: Watch your mouth! Public profanity on the rise

Reaction to the results is likely to range from “That’s interesting” to “Who cares?” to “Duh, I already knew that.”

My response to a media report of a survey indicating a rise in the use of foul language by Americans was a big old “Duh!” If you have a pulse, you already know that profanity pervades American life more so than ever before. The survey in question mentioned two types of foul language: profanity and swear words.

Apparently no attempt was made to distinguish between the two, yet I believe there is a difference. I think swearing refers to using spiritual names in nonspiritual sorts of ways. Profanity, I assume, refers to obscene vocabulary – aka four-letter words – so gross they aren’t fit to be used in polite society, certainly not in a professional newspaper such as Springfield Business Journal.

I suspect the survey results were responses to the obscene variety.

Unless respondents were asked about their attitudes toward the Ten Commandments edict regarding misusing God’s name, the results probably aren’t responding to that sort of swearing.

The Associated Press-Ipsos poll sampled 1,001 adults in late March. A total of 74 percent said they frequently or occasionally encountered profanity or swearing in public. Since profanity is so widespread, I’m not sure where the 26 percent who rarely or never encounter it hang out.

A total of 67 percent are bothered a lot or somewhat by profanity; 32 percent are bothered a little or not at all.

The numbers suggest to me that some people who use foul language must be bothered by others who use it or they are bothered when they use it.

Two-thirds of Americans polled believe people swear more than they did 20 years ago. Apparently they know what they are talking about, because a lot of them are doing it.

I don’t believe I’m a prude. In my youth, I was in the U.S. Navy. Although the other branches of service are probably no better or worse than the Navy, saying one “cusses like a sailor” bears a ring of truth. Being no stranger to foul language, I’m aware that there is much more of it in public than ever before. Frankly, I doubt that anything positive comes from it.

It’s hard to believe that the movie, “Gone with the Wind” created such a commotion when Clark Gable actually used the word “damn.”

Some movies today offer dialogue that can embarrass an old salt like me. Movies on cable TV have brought the movie dirty talk into the living room.

Alleged comedians have apparently discovered they can’t be funny without using language that should be offensive to self-respecting people. That audiences pay good money to be insulted by gross language, and laugh their fool heads off, leads me to say, “Duh,” when I read that crude language in public is on the rise.

Some old-timers may remember when Jack Paar, who preceded Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, once walked off the show because the NBC censors planned to edit out a taped show segment with reference to “water closet,” a British term for restroom. The censors thought they were shielding the audience from “bathroom humor.”

TV has come a long way since Paar was prevented from pushing the envelope even a tiny bit.

Today, network TV propels the dirty talk envelope. At least it doesn’t pulverize the envelope as some cable movie outlets do.

It was no surprise that profanity, no matter what it might be called, is on the rise.

This old salt isn’t pleased.

Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.[[In-content Ad]]