Vulgarity


Abstract:
Joyous cursing. I really agreed with this article, and especially appreciated the nuanced differences between blasphemy, obscenity, and profanity. Except for this sentence:

Body:
Our vocabulary is becoming more and more narrow, until one day the English spoken in the streets will be reduced to a few grunts and hand gestures.

That's when I realized (again) that a lot of what we think is Christian morality is really middle-class values. "Vulgarity" is "common" because it is common(place). The rhetoric that English is "devolving" has been around for a long, long time. While I think it is true that individuals can lose the ability to express themselves if they do not watch their language, that principle holds true regardless of whether the language is "vulgar" or not. People who overuse the word "devastated" cannot adequately describe real devastation. Christians who overuse spiritual language may not be able to adequately describe real spirituality - which is something I think happens all the time.

Posted: Thu - November 25, 2004 at 09:05 PM           |

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