Watch Your Language! (Part I)
Isaac Rosenbloom, a 30-year-old student at Hinds Community College in Jackson, Mississippi, was miffed that he got a lower grade on a speech assignment than he had expected.
In his frustration, he sounded off with the f-word. His professor, within earshot, was more than mildly irritated on hearing the expletive and remanded him to the dean’s office.
Wet-noodled by the college’s doyen, the unhappy Rosenbloom turned to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) to defend his right, as an adult, to use off-color words.
FIRE raised the question, “Is it constitutional for an institution of higher learning to impose a limit on speech for its students or employees?”
A few days later, on Sunday, May 23rd, which was Pentecost in the Christian world, I was listening to Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion on National Public Radio while on a long drive.
He was doing his weekly monologue on the latest news from Lake Wobegone, his fictional home town somewhere in the depths of Minnesota. Across the street from the village’s most prominent hash house was an old relic of a telephone booth, he was saying, seldom used anymore for its designed purpose, but a haven for guys who dart into it to — prepare for another f-word — “fart.” (Howls of laughter from the audience.)
Yes, Garrison Keillor, too, makes use of his right to speak freely. You might think, though, that an “English major,” as he reminds listeners regularly, and someone who at least gives the impression of being in possession of manners, would choose a more appropriate expression for flatuence, such as “pass gas” or “break wind.”
There are, of course, many other such everyday illustrations of foul language spouted throughout the realm. What the issue boils down to is: free speech rights versus verbal decorum [from L. decorus, "right, proper"].
It’s a far cry from the good old days at the local Bijou. When Rhett Butler uttered his memorable exit words to Scarlett O’Hara in 1939’s Gone With The Wind, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” a nation gasped.
The Production Code (Hays Code), film land’s guardian of celluloid purity, was then amended to make room for such words as “hell” and “damn” for what the movie moguls termed “special considerations.”
Creeping linguistic freedom would wear down Hollywood’s censorship barriers over the ensuing years, until finally profanity would become one of the staples of movie making.
Hardly anyone gives the matter of crass language a second thought nowadays, whether in film, TV, radio, or everyday conversation. What’s even more frustrating for the few purists, the young, in particular, aren’t even aware of what constitutes coarse, vulgar, and offensive language.
Well, maybe there are more than a few among us who do fret over America’s descent into a culture of profanity. Part II of “Watch Your Language!” will illustrate how the Great Depression-World War II generation handled — or avoided – common obscenities.