Flippin’ Freakin’ Blankety Blank @#$!!

You can try to disguise it, but the rest of us know what you mean.

Have you noticed how euphemisms like freakin’ and flippin’ are becoming more and more mainstream? Everyone knows they are substitutes for the big kahuna, and as such, for years, they were used judiciously.

But, like toothpaste from the tube, they’re fully out now. The imposters became well known and accepted as appropriate vocab. Now you hear them everywhere.

Alas, there is no going back.

I’m not the grammar police nor do I pretend to be the decency doctor. Heck, I’ve had my moments, too. Still, the casual nature of the whole movement strikes me as being just lazy language.

For one thing, you probably don’t really need to use that extra modifier to:

• Let everyone know how tired you are…
• Say how big the burger was that you ate last night…
• Describe the amazing touchdown decided the Auburn-Georgia game last Saturday…

Just tell us. We all get it.

I’ve also been literally struck, recently, by how literally we are all using the modifier ‘literally’ know that something literally happened. Ahem.

I digress.

The use of gratuitous profanity seems to be everywhere.  Somehow, it makes us feel bigger, tougher, edgier.  It wasn’t always that way. I guess it is time for me to admit that I come from a time and place when cussin’ wasn’t cool.

Point of fact, I remember one time when my mother washed my mouth with soap for a youthful verbal transgression.

On another occasion, I remember being questioned by my dad after I used the modifier, ‘darn’ to describe something. He was not amused.

What we would all give for a few more darns, now, and less frequent freakin’s. 

In the baseball league I’ve told you so much about, a ban on profanity was a part of the Code of Conduct that we asked coaches, parents and players to follow. We wanted to set a good example for our young players.

During our semi-annual field workdays, we asked coaches and dads to refrain from practicing while we were working on fields and fixtures. It was a safety issue and, I think to some of us, it was also a matter of protocol. “Why do you get the privilege of playing while the rest of us are working?”

On one of the workdays, a bunch of us noticed a dad/coach who was throwing batting practice to his son in one of the batting cages while some guys were working near-by.

One of the commissioners walked over to him and politely pointed out the breach of protocol and asked if he’d mind coming back a bit later to throw BP. This particular coach/dad wasn’t hearing any of it. It was his freakin’ flippin’ right to freak in’ flip do what he freakin’ flippin’ wanted to.

Uh, and it was the big kahuna he used that day rather than the colorful euphemisms.

My commish-friend was, also, not amused. And it was the breach of language he found even more objectionable than the original act that prompted the discussion.

And he let him know about it.

We fixed that situation but, of course, we can’t fix them all.

My call to action today isn’t anything profound. Maybe it is just a matter of bringing awareness to the practice.  Maybe, just maybe, we can all think about what we say and choose our words more carefully.

Of course, if the situation merits the metaphors, then go for it. 

On the other hand, if the burger is big, it’s big. If it is super-sized, maybe it is just a doggone big burger.

JG

Originally posted 11/19/2013