Dirty Words

In 1972, George Carlin’s Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television was a scandalous hit. Even though most of the words can be heard regularly on many cable TV channels now, they are still considered inappropriate. Why certain combinations of letters that make certain sounds are deemed “bad” has always concerned me. But as a writer, I know that words are powerful. Especially words like the original seven: Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. He also mentioned Fart, Turd, and Twat as contenders. I capitalize them to give them the authority they so richly deserve. I have a few to add as well. Mostly because I have stories to go with them.

I’ll address each word in order. A lot of parents forbid their children from using what they call the “S” word. Stupid. In our house, the “S” word is Shit. Much more expressive. (With our kids, we have so many other words worse than stupid to contend with, we tend to let that one slip by. We’ve told the kids that it’s not so bad to refer to a thing as stupid, but you shouldn’t call a person that. Unless it’s true.) Shit is one of my favorites. I like it because it is one of the few words whose meaning changes simply by putting the word “the” in front of it. If something is called Shit, it is just that: Shit. However, if something is referred to as The Shit, it is great. Note the difference: “This pie is Shit, Mom.” And “This pie is The Shit, Mom!” Shit is also a great synonym for the word “stuff.” I overheard my daughter and a friend of hers talking about how much they miss their bus driver and that they hope he’ll be driving their bus again the next year. I thought, Isn’t that sweet… Until my daughter said, “Yeah, he was nice except for all that foul language…” So I asked what she was talking about. She didn’t want to say the word. I said, “It can’t be any worse than what you have heard your dad and his friends say.” She said, “Or you. But hello? He’s a school bus driver.” She decided spelling it would solve the problem. She told me that one day he yelled at the kids to get their “S-H-I-T” out of the aisle. Good for him, I say. I am also fond of Shit because it is especially entertaining if I hear it uttered by a child or an elderly person. Years ago, a friend’s son (I think he was about six then) got into trouble for saying something relatively harmless like butthole. His mother’s punishment of choice was to put Tabasco sauce on his tongue as he stood in a corner. His response from that corner: “I guess I can’t say Shit either.” Brilliant. After my grandmother had a stroke, she lost her ability to speak. But she could still say “Shit!” Goddammit. I would too, if I had a stroke. I’d be pissed.

That brings us to Piss. It just means urinate, for Christ’s sake. Like pee or tinkle. But for some reason those four rather onomatopoeic letters make it a so-called bad word. During a rather trying visit to a truck stop restroom, I overheard a mom who was potty training her son. As I waited for an available stall, I heard this hillbilly meth-head say, “Come on, Li’l Earl, take a good piss for your mama.” Now, I’m not sure if she was indeed a hillbilly meth-head, and I also wonder if that description is a bit redundant as many hillbillies are probably meth-heads, but of course, not all meth-heads are hillbillies. They just look like them, what with the toothlessness and all. I’m also not sure if the kid’s name was Earl, but it was something redneckish like that. But I digress. I had never heard an adult say that word to a kid before. It was oddly refreshing. But poor little Earl didn’t have a chance. I venture to guess that learning a bad word was the least of his problems.

The next word on the list is probably everyone’s favorite. Fuck. So fun to say, right? So fucking handy. There are few things funnier than pre-schoolers using foul language that they clearly picked up from their parents. When my son was about four years old, after frantically searching the house for his little cowboy boots to don with his Pull-Up and hat, he looked at his grandmother and matter-of-factly in all his naiveté, asked, “Gabba, where are my fuckin’ boots?” He knew that that’s how you describe something you’re looking for in our household. When my nephew was about three years old, he told my mother, “I was going to say Fucking hell, but I didn’t.” We kept asking him, “What did you say???” And he kept repeating it, with a straight face, in his sweet soft little toddler voice. I swear, the Q & A went back and forth a good three or four times before we realized that indeed that was what he was saying. Then we kept asking him repeat it several more times because it was so damn funny. What else can you do with that? The word Fuck is the most important part of one of my favorite expressions: Bum-Fuck, Egypt; more commonly known simply as BFE. It is my generation’s parlance for “far away.” When I tell someone that we had to park way out in BFE, and they don’t know what I mean, depending upon whom I’m talking to, I either feel young or old. Usually old. The first time I said it to my daughter, I had to explain not only that Egypt itself is far away, but also that any place called Bum-Fuck, anywhere, is, by definition, far away. Therefore, Bum-Fuck, Egypt is doubly far away. She seemed to understand. Or else she was simply mesmerized by my saying the word Fuck to her when she was only seven years old.

The next word is arguably regarded as the worst combination of four letters ever put together. The “C” word as we call it. I personally like to say it anytime I get the chance just because the sound of it is so shocking. And it fascinates me that a short one-syllable word can arouse such angst, especially in women. I own that word. That word is my bitch. I learned to own it when I went to see Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues. There is a short monologue called Reclaiming Cunt that really spoke to me. It is short enough to quote here:

I call it cunt. I've reclaimed it, “cunt.” I really like it. “Cunt.” Listen to it. “Cunt.” C C, Ca Ca. Cavern, cackle, clit, cute, come--closed c--closed inside, inside ca--then u--then cu--then curvy, inviting sharkskin u--uniform, under, up, urge, ugh, ugh, u--then n then cun--snug letters fitting perfectly together—n--nest, now, nexus, nice, nice, always depth, always round in uppercase, cun, cun—n a jagged wicked electrical pulse—n [high-pitched noise] then soft n--warm n--cun, cun, then t--then sharp certain tangy t--texture, take, tent, tight, tantalizing, tensing, taste, tendrils, time, tactile, tell me “Cunt cunt,” say it, tell me “Cunt.” “Cunt.”

See, if you say it enough, it starts to lose its power. A girlfriend of mine coined a word for her belly. Gunt she calls it. When your gut extends down to your cunt to form one continuous body part. A gunt is a lot like cankles or even thankles. But again, I digress.

This brings us to Cocksucker. Saying that word just makes your mouth feel good, doesn’t it? Repeat it: COCKSUCKER. It is best said in all caps when you are especially angry. My 70-year-old mother recently announced that she plans to take up frequent use of the word Cocksucker. She figures that at her age, she can finally get away with it. I tried to explain that I have been getting away with it for years, but she is from a kinder, gentler generation.

Next to COCKSUCKER, Motherfucker is near and dear to my heart. You can describe people, especially men, as Motherfuckers, and you can describe other things, such as pain via the employment of a simile. Like this: “My sunburn hurts like a Motherfucker!” It is highly unusual to describe a woman as a Motherfucker, but she can be described as, for example, a Motherfucking Cunt. (I also like to use the word Asshole for women just because it is so unexpected. I think it adds an extra dimension to the insult.) Motherfucker can also be used as a term of endearment if spoken in the right tone. One night as I walked with my husband and another couple down Sixth Street in Austin, a dreadlocked, Rasta-beret-wearing, patchouli-scented dope smoker cruised between us on his Pee-Wee-Herman-style bike. As he weaved between us, he looked us up and down, smiled broadly, and asked, “Whassup, Muthafuckas?” It was epic. Men use it as a compliment as well. Especially when referring to another man’s machismo. As in: “He is one tough Motherfucker. Don’t Fuck with that guy.” It’s quite a versatile and poetic compound word.

Why Tits is on the list is beyond me. Another powerful four-letter combo. It makes boobs pornographic. And I’m all about porn. I have always liked the phrase Titty Bar for those euphemistically-termed Gentlemen’s clubs. Excuse me, gentlemen, but you are being bilked one dollar at a time by some clever women who are capitalizing on the fact that a large portion of this nation’s population of gentlemen is willing to part with a significant portion of the paycheck they just cashed to see some bare Tits. Unlike most of the other words on the list, Tits or any derivative thereof is a word that a child should never say. It is one thing for a kid to say Motherfucker. Now that’s funny. But something about the word Tits coming out of a kid’s mouth is just wrong. Maybe it’s the fact that they probably just finished breastfeeding. At least I hope so, if they are able to talk about Tits. If they are still breastfeeding, and I hear them say, “Hey, Mom, I’m thirsty. Gimme one of your Tits!” I might throw up in my mouth a little bit. Speech impediments can come in handy for some unintended inappropriate words coming out of kids’ mouths. My daughter had a playmate who could not make the K sound. She would replace it with a T. So Hello Kitty became Hello Titty. And she sure did love Hello Titty. I know because we asked her about it all the time just to hear her say it. She would also use the D sound in place of the letter G. One time I heard her say, “Dod-dammit,” and I wondered if God would hold that against her even though it wasn’t really his name.

Carlin’s last three words were extras. Fart, Turd, and Twat. Fart? Seriously? My mother-in-law calls Fart “the F word.” I don’t have the heart to sit her down and tell her what the real F word is. The word Fart doesn’t usually sound nearly as bad as the Fart itself. What’s worse is Shart. When Shit and Fart combine, that’s where the real bodily function magic happens. Shart sort of brings us to Turd. Turd is a cute little word for fecal matter. If Shit is the adult word for feces, Turd is the kids’ version. When I hear the word Turd, I always picture one floating in a punch bowl. In my lexicon, people who invite drama are known to “Stir the Turd.” Turd-stirrers piss me off, except for the fact that it gives me an opportunity to say, “Stop stirring the Turd, you dumbshit!” Turd is also used to describe a difficult person in a more lighthearted way. As in: “My grandmother won’t take her medicine. She is such a Fucking Turd.” The last word, Twat, in my opinion, is worse than Cunt. Erotic women have Cunts. Slutty college girls have Twats. A Twat is more likely to have an STD. Scientific fact. Because of this, calling a woman a Cunt is one thing; referring to her as a Twat is indeed much more highly offensive. Keep that in mind for the next time you need to insult a woman.

I have a few more “dirty” word stories to tell (along with any related tangents) so here they are:

Bitch is not necessarily such a bad word, but it is frowned upon in many social circles. And frowned upon when kids say it. Because our son was such a cowboy when he was little, my husband thought it would be nice to watch John Wayne’s The Cowboys with him. For the most part, it was kid-friendly. There was only one line we had a little trouble with, but we thought he didn’t even notice it. We were wrong. The next day, our sweet little cowboy lost his temper with me. He looked at me and in all seriousness, said, “Mama, you son of a bitch!” He cried when I laughed at him. Years ago, a teenage friend of my brother said his mom was yelling at him and called him a son of a bitch. In all of his teen wisdom, he looked her up and down and responded, “You got that right!” Ouch. I think he missed an Iron Maiden concert for that one.

I have a love-hate relationship with Boner. It is a word that makes a hard penis both funny and threatening. I like Chubber, as well. Chubber makes a hard penis cute and cuddly. Woody makes it splintery. A Boner came up one day in my office. During some light chatter after a serious conversation with a client and another attorney, I discovered that the client had played clarinet in the Army band. After I mentioned that I was a really bad clarinet player, my associate said, “I was a tromboner … er, trombonist.” I have found that nephews are a great source of inappropriate talk. My kids and their cousins were playing in my mother’s hot tub when we discovered my four-year-old nephew sans pants playing with himself in a rather blatant and pornographic manner. My sister told him to stop, explaining that he can investigate his private parts in private, but not in front of people. He threw a temper tantrum that rivaled any I had ever seen in my local Walmart and kept screaming, “It’s my wiener and I want to play with it!! It’s mine and I can play with it if I want to!!” Such a little man. The audience of immature adults could only stifle tears of laughter. It would have been a lot funnier if he had called it his Boner though.

Another nephew came up with this little gem: When we gathered with relatives on a vacation, an 18-year-old previously baby-faced cousin showed up with a goatee. In mock shock, I asked aloud, “What is that on Cameron’s face?” My nine-year-old nephew didn’t hesitate to say, “I don’t know, but it looks like a Beaver!” Of course, one of Cameron’s buddies mumbled, “He wishes.” I am not sure when or why a woman’s external genitalia were named after an aquatic buck-toothed dam-building mammal. I would Google it, but I fear the image results. I pity the man who coined the term, because the woman who inspired it must have had a most unattractive Pussy.

The Beaver incident reminded me of a lovely song I was subjected to at the closing ceremony of my daughter’s Girl Scout camp a few years ago. The event was all very sweet. The flag-raising, the recitation of the Girl Scout Oath and Girl Scout Motto (I will never know which is which), the singing of the Girl Scout signature song “Make new friends/but keep the old/one is silver and the other gold…,” blah, blah, blah, the picnic, then a nice tape-recorded playing of Taps as the flag was lowered at the end. It was entertaining to see so many little girls all happy and dirty in mismatched clothes, laughing with their friends and performing for their parents. (I’d say it was as American as apple pie, but that concept was tainted –in my dirty mind- by the movie American Pie.) Anyway, at some point in the show, the girls lined up to sing and act out another song. This is where (for me) it suddenly became awkward and inappropriate. The cuteness came to a screeching halt and I giggled like Wayne and Garth or Beavis and Butthead:

The Beaver Song

Beaver one, Beaver all, let’s all do the Beaver crawl (pretend to crawl)
Beaver two, Beaver three, let’s all eat a Beaver tree (pretend to climb)
Beaver four, Beaver five, let’s all do the Beaver dive (pretend to dive)
Beaver six, Beaver seven, let’s all go to Beaver heaven (sway with hands in prayer)
Beaver eight, beaver nine, stop
It’s Beaver time, go Beaver, go Beaver (rapper/hip-hop moves)
Beaver ten, Beaver ten, let’s all do the Beaver again!


Beaver dive? Beaver heaven? Really? Oh yeah, do that Beaver again. I then pictured a burlesque team of the grown-up scout leaders (most of them rather burly women) taking it one step further, and I wanted to poke my eyes out. Maybe I am simply immature. There is an adult chip missing that would keep me from attributing dirty meanings to anything that could possibly be interpreted in any sexual way. Sometimes I think I should exorcise this teenage boy who has taken up residence in the basement of my mind, but I like him. He’s hot.

Speaking of Beavers, my daughter, who was probably seven years old at the time, picked out a package of panties with cute little silkscreened animals on them. (Actually, she caused me to accidentally shoplift them, but that’s another story.) When I unwrapped the package to put the panties in the laundry, I was confronted with one pair that said “Absolutely Purrrfect” under a photograph of an adorable kitten. Another pair depicted a cartoon monkey eating a lollipop and saying, simply, “Yummy!” Do pedophiles make these panties or do I just have a sick mind? But I digress.

One of my favorite words is Ass. So versatile. Asswipe, Assmunch, Asshat, Assface, Asshole, for example. My daughter became quite adept at spelling so-called bad words. She told on her brother once by saying, “He called me an A-S-S-W-H-O-L-E!” I gave her extra credit for creative spelling. When my son was about six years old, he called his three-year-old sister a dumbass. When I reprimanded him (even though he was absolutely right, because, let's face it, three-year-olds can make some uninformed choices) he corrected himself and said, “I’m sorry, but she’s a stupid-bottom.” That was the first time he had used that other “S” word. Shit, I thought, I can't punish him, because it was true.