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TagsBY PAM LOBLEY
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
COMMENTARY
"Why can't I say ‘sucks'?" my son asks. He's twelve, and pretty much everyone he knows uses that word freely. It's kind of a bad word, but not really. It's a crossover word, like crap. Crap used to be a curse word, but now it's moved into the crossover category: not a nice word, but not a curse word either.
It's hard to tell your child that "sucks" is a bad word when the rest of the world disagrees with you. We regularly hear ads on the radio for "Your Marketing Sucks": a book about — well, about how your marketing is not quite what it should be. I guess the author felt he would not sell as many copies if he called his book "Your Marketing Stinks". He may be right. "Sucks" still shocks us, albeit just a little, and gets our attention. It seems audacious to use it in polite conversation.
Is there such a thing as polite conversation anymore? Freakin' A, no! Everybody's language sucks. The stigma of using vulgar terms has vanished. In an average day at the office, running errands, or attending a school event, you'll hear "sucks", "freakin'", "crap", "ass", "bites", "bitch", "boobs", etc. Not only do we hear these borderline words on TV and in the movies, we hear them from our friends, our friends' moms, coaches, neighbors, store clerks, executives, doctors, newscasters and babysitters. That blows.
Heard the Nicorette gum commercial? It reminds you that "Quitting Sucks" — referring to how difficult it is to quit smoking. The gum promises to help quitting "suck less". They even have a little graphic of a "suckometer" on their website. Isn't that darling? What witty, sophisticated campaign will Madison Avenue think of next?
Denis Leary had a big bestseller with his book "Why We Suck." The book is pretty funny, and rails against Americans for being fat, loud, lazy, stupid, and litigious. He makes some salient points, but the book is filled with swear words, graphic body part references, overt sexual discussion and a basic barrage of boorish, uncouth language. It gets downright foul at times. So, I guess the message is ...don't be fat, loud, lazy or stupid — but feel free to talk like a loutish guttersnipe.
Let's remember where the reference for the word "sucks" comes from. Take a minute. Visualize. It's doesn't refer to a vacuum cleaner ... or any type of scientific process happening in outer space like a black hole formation ... it doesn't reference a sweet nursing baby ... YES! That's right! That's where the term comes from ... NOW you remember. Keeping that in mind — still want to hear it coming out of your 10 year old son's mouth? How about your 14 year old daughter? How about your mother-in-law?
When I was growing up, we were told that using curse words was a sign of limited intelligence and imagination. I agree with this. It's just laziness. When I use words like suck or freakin', and I do, it's because I just can't be bothered to ramp up my conversation. I am taking the easiest way out, and since there's no stigma to those words, there's no need to avoid them. No matter how lazy I am feeling, I don't pass wind or pick my teeth in front of other people, because there is still a stigma to those things, but I have no problem using coarse words.
I hesitated to write this column, because I knew I would sound like an old prude: uptight and disapproving. Then I realized — I don't care! We need to put some snobbery into our culture, and I'm ready to lead the way. We've become so egalitarian that we're afraid to impose standards at the risk of being too showy.
I tell my son that instead of saying "This sucks", he could say, "This is despicable", "vile", "abhorrent", "dreadful in the extreme", "ghastly" or "twisted beyond recognition." I can tell what he's thinking: no way. He would sound too weird to his friends. He would sound like a show off.
But we show off our big, gas guzzling cars. We show off our big, high-end kitchens and our pictures from the cruise to the Caribbean, but we're afraid to show off our intelligence? That su --- is deplorable.
Pam Lobley is a columnist and co-author of the book "You Definitely Know You're a Mom When ..." To read her past columns or get contact information, visit her website: www.pamlobley.com.
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Next up, another word people must not literally think about using left and right: "crappy." Recently, a holder of two master's degrees being interviewed about her job used "crappy" 2 or 3 times and never blinked an eye. How could she?!