Posted on 04/12/2005 10:06:43 AM PDT by crv16
Dan Horwich's English class is a bastion of clean language, where students read the classics and have weighty discussions free of invective and profanity. But when the bell rings and they walk out his door, the hallway vibrates with talk of a different sort.
"The kids swear almost incessantly," said Horwich, who teaches at Guildford High School in Rockford, Ill. "They are so used to swearing and hearing it at home, and in the movies, and on TV, and in the music they listen to that they have become desensitized to it."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Possibly a poor choice of words on my part...so I will rephrase my question.
Why are so many adults so fearful of correcting disrespectful behavior in young people?
I grew up with the expectation that I was to show respect to my elders.....that does not seem to be very common in this day and age.
That's one example where the use of dirty words is beneficial to society.
HERE'S HOW IT SHOULDN'T BE USED:
Real life Snot-faced punk: That ride $%^*@%* @#%#, I want to kill them for wasting my money!!!!!
HERE'S HOW IT'S USED IN CERTAIN ADULT-LEVEL LITERATURE (THE CORRECT WAY):
David Foster Wallace's "Getting away from already pretty much being away from it all" (pgs 100-101):
Author: She has my elbow and is helping me up the hillside's slick grass. "Did you sense something kind of sexual harassmentish going on through that whole sick exercise?"
Native Companion: Oh for $%^#'s sake slug it was fun." (Ignore the nickname)
.......
Author: "So I'm curious, then, what it would have taken back there, say, to have gotten you to lodge some sort of complaint with the Fair's management."
...
Native Companion: "You're so #$%^$%^^ innocent, Slug"
THERE ARE PLENTY OF EXAMPLES OF EFFECTIVE SATIRICAL USES OF FOUL LANGUAGE BUT YOU GET THE POINT
it's probabley built into the software. some people may put good quotes or whatever in if we had longer ones, but there would also be alot of pointless ones that would make scrolling down the page take twice as long.
Don't you know? It is old-fashioned and unrealistic to correct behavior. Children (and adults who act like children) are to be allowed to do or say anything they desire, with no regard for consequences. Correcting their behavior may lead to (gasp!)...a low self-esteem.
< /sarcasm>
hehe
What's really fun are the substitutions being used by people who don't want to swear, but still can't avoid using expletives.
"freakin"
"flippin"
"forkin"
"shoot"
"shucks"
I could go on, but you get the idea. Please feel free to add to the list.
The problem I have with the "fear of discipline" tactic is that it's only temporary. Once the adults leave the area, the children are back to immoral behavior.
"There's Adam Clymer, major league a-hole from the NY Times"
Considering how the media treats him, I think President Bush was being nice.
If he had called him a jerk, it wouldn't have had the same effect, IMO.
Having had about 7 surgeries, a few of them pretty major, I can say it isn't worth the expletives. They don't make the pain go away, nor the scar tissue less. It doesn't even make you feel better about the news, although many trick themselves to think it does. What does help you accept it is realizing that we can't change things and there is Someone who can and who is more concerned with our heart than the words that come out of our mouth - which reflects what is in the heart.
Their self esteem is not my problem :)
That would not be a problem if the proper use of discipline was employed in the first place.
I think it gained him votes actually. It put a human element to the normal "politispeak".
CHILREN SEE --- CHILDREN DO
You do not understand discipline then.
Oderint dum metuant!
The theme that keeps cropping up in this discussion of profanity is: Hey, it's somebody else's fault that our kids swear like drunken sailors!
However, the theme should be: It's OUR responsibility that OUR kids don't swear like drunken sailors.
As long as parents treat their kids' behavior like a car wreck that wasn't their fault, the worse kids will get. My attitude toward such parents is: Hey, you made'em, you train'em.
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