My advice this morning, to anybody willing to listen, is this: Leave a little room at the top.
I say “advice” because I think it’s a tip that can legitimately help people out. I say “anybody willing to listen” because I’ve been giving this advice since before the turn of the 21st century to very little effect.
Before I go on, allow me to toss a word of credit to columnist Megan Giles Cooney who sparked me with her piece on the Feb. 23 edition of the Record-Eagle. Her take was that salty language was being normalized in pop culture and work culture. So much so that its repeated use effectively “dulls us down” to its usage. She’s right, of course, but the overuse of filthy language in civil conversation has roots in the overuse of the rest of our language.
To explain, I deliver you to the overuse of the word “awesome.”
Awesome, as I learned it, is a word reserved for things like views from the top of the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the birth of a child, or the landing of a man on the moon. Things that are as momentous as they are … awe-inspiring get to be called “awesome” in my world. Calling Steph Curry’s jump shot, a child’s misshaped drawing of a school bus, or even the taste of Girl Scout cookies “awesome” leaves no room for the truly spectacular.
I could stop there and my point would be made. But like I said before, I’ve been pushing this rock since it was Jerry West’s jump shot and I’m not sure anyone is ever listening. (Maybe it was Michael Jordan’s jumper, but either way …)
As I spend time with my substitute teaching career I frequently overhear our next generation in their native habitat. That is, walking the halls or holding order in classrooms, their casual conversation abounds. Embedded deep within those chats is the unconscious and constant use of foul language.
Wasting your most powerful word on a small achievement leads to adding the salty language that Ms. Cooney is upset about. The moment where “awesome” has already been used is when “effing awesome” typically enters the chat. And I’m right there with you, Megan. All I’m saying is please, leave some room at the top.
From time to time, we have been warned that our antibiotics are becoming less and less effective against meaner and nastier germs and bacteria. Reason being is that, like the misuse of the word “awesome,” our systems are being dulled to their effectiveness. Enough bugs have survived existing drugs and gone on to breed stronger bugs that resist stronger drugs that, like salty language in casual conversation, we just become used to it all.
Also, I’m old enough to relate with the punishment known as getting one’s mouth washed out with soap. It only happened once and it came with a fatherly lecture that emphasized taking the time to think of and then use better words than swear words. Like most of my dad’s lectures, it wound around the point that anybody can make a point by swearing; the smart people take care to make those points without resorting to profanity. I question the soap part of his tactics, but I have to admit, the advice was worthy to my 10-year-old self as the process of testing boundaries with parents while trying to remain cool with my friends played out.
There’s talk that modern antibacterial soaps can be harmful to one’s system so adult Rob Ford sticks to the original point — leave room at the top.