THE
CHARGER
Nowadays, it seems like many people use profanity on a daily basis. It seems like people are constantly using curse words at school whenever you step into the hall. It's so normal sometimes you don’t even realize when your friends say it and it seems like everybody uses curse words other than little kids.
In past generations, most people who consistently used profanity were often viewed as unsophisticated or uneducated. Profanity is still viewed in our society as disrespectful, but it used to be a much larger deal if somebody cursed in public. If an adolescent were caught using curse words, especially when speaking to an adult, it would be shocking to the adult or anybody nearby listening to the conversation. Today if adults hear somebody younger use a profane word, they normally don't even seem surprised. Often, when many adults hear somebody younger using profane words, they even seem surprised, and their common response is simply to tell the child to watch his or her mouth.
Using profanity has become so commonplace in today's society that the words themselves appear to have lost their power.
“Older people take cursing way too seriously” — John Marenic
Cursing is heard all the time at high schools, middle schools, and even some elementary schools. Generally speaking if a person were walking through a high school, he or she would be likely to hear a wide range of profane language up to and often the most severe: the F-bomb. Timothy Jay, a researcher for desertnews.com, recently stated that adolescents use 80 to 90 curse words a day. A Gallup Youth Survey found that 46 percent of surveyed teens (13 to 17 year olds) use profanity several times a week or daily. It also showed that 28 percent of teenagers heard their parents curse a few times a week or on a daily basis.
A student at Providence Day who wanted to remain anonymous said “they don’t have the power that they used to. Occasionally teachers curse during class”. When asking the student how often he hears curse words when walking the halls at school, he said “It seems like every time I step into the hall I hear multiple different students using profanity to their friends, it seems weird when you hear a middle school student use a curse word, but in reality that's how the world is now”.
Kids learn curse words from hearing their parents say it but also from friends, music, tv shows, and social media. In today's day and age it seems like you can’t listen to a song without hearing curse words. When some groups of kids hear public figures like musicians or actors use curse words they feel like there is nothing wrong with them doing the same. In common day society lots of modern parents don’t do a good job of enforcing rules about cursing upon their kids.
After speaking with five different students at Providence Day School, four of the five said that it is totally normal if they use curse words around their parents. It might be crazy to think about that teenagers are cursing at or with their parents like it is not a big deal at all. Once a kid hears somebody older curse, they will probably assume it's okay for them to as well. It's like a chain reaction.
The Charger spoke with Greg Bednar, a grandfather with teenage grandsons, about the use of profanity when he was growing up in his house. He says "I never heard any use of profanity in my house. If myself or my siblings were ever caught using profanity we would have been scolded by my parents". He then stated his opinion on how profanity has changed through the years. "In high school you would hear people cursing occasionally but not even as close to as often as you do now. whenever I go to Myers Park High School to tutor I hear profanity all the time in the halls."
Language used to be a good way of showing how you reflect and carry yourself. Cursing has become so common and accepted, that it feels like the only time it carries a shock value is if they are used when speaking to an elder or an authority figure.
The future of cursing is only going to get worse. In future society, cursing will be so accepted that it may not even be bleeped out in television and music. As time progresses, we will continue to hear more and more people use profanity. Unfortunately cursing has, for the most part, officially lost its shock value.
Some Providence Day students often struggle to keep their language clean. Image courtesy of O. Tappy.
Cursing: A Lost Cause
By Owen Tappy
Image courtesy of the O. Tappy