Today I had to go to the city centre, on my own, to do a quick mystery shop. The thing about being on your own is that you don't have somebody else yatting in your ear and so as well as people watching you can also people listen. What I heard was NOT very pleasant. Not gory details about folks' lives or stuff like that, but the language. Absolutely dreadful. I feel about 80 just saying it, but all sorts of people were walking along effing and blinding, just in conversation , as naturally as breathing. A lot, but not all, were teenage/20s kinds but some were older. And also, mainly females. Just outside the big shopping centre I stopped to look in a window and I heard a girl's voice say '.....the f****g area has really gone f*****g down since that c*** moved in'. When I looked round she was maybe 23, done up to the nines, clearly lacking any self-awareness, talking to a bloke maybe the same age who was nodding sagely. I heard young mums talking to their babies and toddlers like that and men talking in that way to their wives.
Now, I'm no shrinking violet. I've worked in a lot of pubs; I'm married to an ex-matelot; I've taught teenage boys; and I was born and lived for a good while in a particularly malignant Northern city, so it's not like I don't know what cussing is. But why such an upsurge in it? And why are girls so foul-mouthed? Am I wrong to think that females should be the gentler sex?
I really don't know whether it's a general hardening or coarsening of society. I sure don't know how it can be stopped. But I know I don't *!/?$*!%* like it.
Oh, don't get me started on swearing in public. These people either lack self awareness or are rather proud of themselves. I'll stop before I really start grumbling :)
ReplyDeleteKeshling, I loathe it ! My Granddad used to say that using profanity just confirms that you don't have a command of the English language.
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