[Vidalia]

As Ozzy would retort:

"Who the ---- gives a ----ing damn about this bunch of ----ing idiots on the ----ing Tele that no ----ing any ----ing body even knows the ---- about? Me foot ----ing hurts. Who told you this ----ing shit? You ----ing lying to me again? Whot, now you ----ing just want more ----ing money, ain't that it, you ----ing bitch. when the ----ing Queen is Kanightin me like McCartney, I'm ----ing gonna tell her about your ----ing trying to rip me off..You ain't got a chance, ya know, cause I am a cult hero. You ----ing know that, don't ya? Yer name's Sharon, right? How the ---- did you get in my ----ing house? Who the ---- are you and who the ---- are these ----ing odd children? "

Welcome to the molecular world of a burned out idiot.

A rehash just seemed the right thing to do...

[Paul Atreides]

What is so frustrating is a general breakdown of common courtesy, across the board.

[gcruse]

I was raised to never curse around women, which is probably a compromise for when my forebears refused to stop cursing entirely. Things were OK when I moved my family to Canada in 1970. When we moved back in 1980, young women had acquired a filthy mouth they seemed proud of. Oddly, they didn't acquire the admonition to keep their curses between themselves and other women. They used every word I ever heard as if the language were every day parlor talk. It hasn't gotten any worse since, but then, how could it?

[Tall_Texan]

The trouble, of course, is that when you start limiting speech, where does one draw the line? Isn't that what political correctness is all about? Stifling speech under the guise of not offending others?

I bemoan the coarsening of our culture but I fail to see how my wearing blue jeans to work contributes to it. What I've seen in my lifetime is first the skills for putdown are acquired through situation comedy television and peer groups, next sex enters the picture, usually around the same time as alcohol and drugs. Finally, there is high school and college and - voila! - you have a crude, sex-obsessed lout with the courtesy and verbal skills of a motorcycle gang.

And because youth is all about shocking one's elders (even if it means lemming-like subserviance to the fashion trends of your antisocial peers), each new generation must find something even more offensive and shocking than the last one in order to establish their own boundaries.

Imagine when we've devolved to the point that courtesy, modesty and godliness becomes the trendy way to shock others. I suspect it will arrive in the next two or three generations.

[Semper911]

While I agree that people could stand to be more polite and respectful of one another, I have to say that this is one *bleep*ing arrogant article.

[The Duke]

"If you would find a thing, seek it's opposite."

[shaggy eel]

,,, it all seems to be going to hell in a handbasket. Standards ain't what they used to be, for sure.

[blackbart.223]

"After forty years of the Cultural Revolution, persons of all classes and professions have become co-natural with the vulgar, the common, and the casual."

For the most part I agree with this article. There is far too much coarse behavior.

But when you start refering to people by class, you cross the line and become pompous. Part of the American Revolution was to do away with titles of nobility.

[Mark Turbo]

As an ambitious young man in his teens, George Washington copied 110 rules of good manners from an English courtesy book of the previous century.

George Washington's Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior:

• Superfluous compliments and all affectations of ceremony are to be avoided, yet where due, they are not to be neglected.
• Be not hasty to believe flying reports to the disparagement of any.
• Artificers and persons of low degree ought not to use many ceremonies to Lords or others of high degree, but respect and highly honor them; and those of high degree ought to treat them with affability and courtesy, without arrogance.

This is good advice for us all, even Dr. Horvat. It's more down to earth than this article IMO.

You can find these rules quoted along with a few others in Gary Aldrich's book Unlimited Access.

[Paulus Invictus]

A wonderfully appropriate and timely piece. Thank you. I find the language of today not only vulgar, but obscene. On TV and in movies, we hear the worst of this bad language. At first hearing, it shocks us, then embarrasses us, then this wears off and the vulgarity begins to be accepted by the majority of people, especially kids who learn it fast.

I admit, with no apology, that I'm of the generation that finds bad language as sign of the decline of manners and of civilized behavior, including the use of language, but it is apparent that modern generations do not agree.

[Washington-Husky]

Good read. (TG, I know a certain teenage girl in PA who needs to read this....)

[StoneColdGOP]

Damn crusty old fogies.

Hell with 'em.

[gargoyle]

...In public in this nation, speak english, or, you'll get no response from me. In forum and debate, speak english, with reason and logic, or, you'll get no response from me. In private, among peers, be free to express yourself in culture and language that you understand. I will associate, or not...

[Hacksaw]

True story: the son of one of the band members of my friends band used the "F" word in front of my friends parents. The guy took his son aside yelling at him, saying "I told you never to use those f*cking words!". And no, I did not make this up.

[grumpster-dumpster]

Let me preface my comments with a simple fact about myself: I spent 32 years in the Navy. I'm not trolling for acclaim about that, it's just a simple fact.

I fully agree with the author about the courseness and degridation of our languge, and thereby our attitudes. During my entire experience in the USN, I heard many vulgar utterings... but it was because of the time and place. My fellow shipmates were (by far) more refined when they hit-the-beach and at least attempted to intermingle with society on a higher level... Well, much to their credit, they tried hard not to come across as the "foul-mouthed-sailor" when representing their Navy.

My point is that people no longer seem to have any sense of the time or place when verbalizing their thoughts.

This paragraph from the article was, IMHO, most germaine:
"Therefore, the Catholic who would truly like to fight the egalitarian trend in temporal society, the Catholic who truly desires a restoration of Christian Civilization, would by principle choose to love everything that is cultivated, elevating, and ennobling, and likewise avoid everything that is ignoble, base, and coarse. This includes vulgar and egalitarian language."

I understand the author was writing to a "Catholic" audience; But, I would like my fellow Freepers to ignore the word "Catholic" as a reference to a faith and think of it in it's true meaning as "Universal."

P.S.; As long as I'm at it... I believe we could also apply the articles concept to "personal communication via tattoo's;" which are an obscene affront to the human body as well as spirit. (OK,...my hatred of tattoo's is one of my personal hot-buttons; I just can't resist an opportunity to condemn them any chance I get).

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

If one must use...colorful metaphors, I suggest a return to our linguistic roots.

Thou art all, a gaggle of beetle-headed dankish pox-marked apple-johns!

[Pistias]

There is a natural tendency to reject formalities and embrace the vulgar, to revolt against the manners and speech of a genteel society in favor of a more relaxed and casual attitude and way of being...In fact, this desire to break with conventions and order, to revolt against logic and hierarchy, to say whatever one wants whenever one likes, is at depth a principle contrary to all order.

Is order unnatural?

IN WHAT SPIRIT THE AMERICANS CULTIVATE THE ARTS

LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS OF DEMOCRATIC TIMES

THE STUDY OF GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE IS PECULIARLY USEFUL IN DEMOCRATIC COMMUNITIES

HOW AMERICAN DEMOCRACY HAS MODIFIED THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

WHY DEMOCRATIC NATIONS SHOW A MORE ARDENT AND ENDURING LOVE OF EQUALITY THAN OF LIBERTY

[landerwy]

Good post! Imagine personal improvement and SELF discipline. Novel idea.