Old Fartdom

So, I read about this poll about "profanity":

…the AP-Ipsos poll on attitudes about profanity. The results are taken from a poll of 1,001 adults…*

Not surprisingly,

Two-thirds said they think people use profanity more now than they did 20 years ago.

Of course, there's the relativity of what it is that people think is "profane" (which might explain why it is that certain groups reported hearing less "profanity" than others, if they don't think certain expressions are "profane").

Also, it's my contention that every generation, as it grows older, thinks that most everything is getting worse. It's fun to read, say, medieval accounts by middle-aged people (> 25 years old) who think that the lazy, useless younger generation will be the end of civilization.

So, since I know that it's a universal reaction, I try to avoid the instant thought about how the younger generation is taking civilization to hell in a handbasket (a phrase whose origins I still haven't tracked down), and observe their behavior for its interesting features.

But it doesn't always work. One way that I've confirmed that I'm definitely in old fatdom is when I'm stopped at a stoplight and I hear, loudly and through closed windows on both vehicles, some younger person's hip-hop radio playing a song whose lyric was something like (I paraphrase)

Fuck you! Fuck you! Fucking fucker fuck-fuck you!

I suppose I should have been repulsed by the profanity, or tried to understand how it was an eloquent cry of despair or something, but since there was no melody involved (old-fart clue #1) my only thought was that using the same word for noun, verb, adverbs, and whatever wasn't really quite so expressive as the creator might have thought (old-fart clue #2).

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* Why 1001 adults? See my discussion about "margin of error".

Posted on March 29, 2006 at 14.02 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Old Fartdom

One Response

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  1. Written by S.W. Anderson
    on Wednesday, 29 March 2006 at 22.02
    Permalink

    Your observation on elders making harsh judgments about young people is spot on. I clearly recall what a vile influence Elvis was said to be. Then, a dozen years after Elvis hit the big time, a good many of the top rockers' words and actions onstage and off made Elvis look as innocuous as Lawrence Welk.

    Even so, I believe profanity of the F-word type is more commonly uttered and tacitly accepted than was the case 25 or 30 years ago. I think there has been a fairly steady coarsening of what's considered generally tolerable and even acceptable, especially among younger kids.

    Does this mean the downfall of our country or the complete ruination of society? Not at all. I expect it's a pendulum thing, a phenomenon I've noticed at work repeatedly in several areas. So, as surely as you've now got rappers spewing repetitions of the F-word for people with more money than taste and an extremely low threshold where being entertained is concerned, you'll in due time have many people who want nothing to do with such offensive running off at the mouth.

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