If you say it softly, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not so bad. Now what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that supposed to mean?<\/p>\n
Well, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a conclusion I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve reached after years and years of observation as to how people choose to express themselves. Shouting out a word \u00e2\u20ac\u201d if you overlook the possibility of rousing someone from slumber \u00e2\u20ac\u201d is worse than whispering it.<\/p>\n
Let me explain:<\/p>\n
Some people, loath to use the f-word, or the b-word, or the s-word, or any other alphabetical sequence-word, tend to downplay it, to reduce it to a mere whisper, on the assumption that if they utter the word softly, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no harm, no foul. A high school classmate, upset over the grade he got in chemistry, once told me in a quite audible tone, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That teacher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an —\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He hushed the descriptive word he was about to use, and all I could hear was a barely audible word that had to have begun with a vowel, as indicated by the fact that he used \u00e2\u20ac\u0153an\u00e2\u20ac\u009d instead of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Now, reader, please try to realize the difficulty in writing about so-called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bad words\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s our newspaper\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s policy to keep it clean, to write purely in prose that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pleasing to plenty of people. Hence my vivid recollection of the manner of speaking by my former boss, David Giuliani, now reporting for a newspaper in central Illinois. Each morning, as I reported for work, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d ask David, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the latest scoop.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d One time he told me of an elected official who had invited members of the press to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153kiss my green and gold a–.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Note that the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a–\u00e2\u20ac\u009d serves a dual function: first, it keeps me from spelling out the word that indicates the posterior, the derriere, the part of the anatomy intended by the speaker; it also highlights the fact that utterers of the alleged offensive term reduce the volume. That way, they can always claim they did not use \u00e2\u20ac\u0153that word.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
I once thought I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d heard a friend utter \u00e2\u20ac\u0153God almighty!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when she dropped something frangible in the rain. Now, Sister Rosario Grandote, our homeroom teacher, and all the other nuns at Immaculate Conception School, admonished us to watch our language and never be profane. The butter-fingered student successfully explained that what she really had said was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153got all muddy.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
But does it really matter what a person says? Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the meaning behind the words what really counts? There is no phonetic difference between \u00e2\u20ac\u0153damn\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dam,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d yet one is a no-no, and the other represents a structure that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to solve all of Las Vegas\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 water problems.<\/p>\n
Another observation is of people who seem to believe that if they lower their voice when revealing something important, the hushed tones denote a secret. We used to have a neighbor who apparently loved sharing family secrets, without really seeming to. She didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to appear indiscreet when out in the street. Once the neighbor, in the course of telling us all about family, lowered her voice and whispered something unrevealable about her 16-year-old daughter: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think my daughter is drinking when she goes out on dates. But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d appreciate it if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d keep this in confidence.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Fair enough, but on her walk, our neighbor soon came across yet another over-the-back-fence companion; they exchange pleasantries, and within seconds, she discussed Missy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s imbibabilities. Now how many people need to be in on the secret \u00e2\u20ac\u201d given without coercion \u00e2\u20ac\u201d before it ceases to be a secret? The definition of a secret is something we keep until we meet the next person.<\/p>\n
Without seeming like Se\u00c3\u00b1or Apathetic, there are times when I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d rather not even hear about people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kids\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 libation quotients. Usually it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s safer not to know \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and not to pry. When the secret runs full circle, some people either swear the other person forced the secret out of them, or else they claim, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was a secret. Why, I only told it to 17 of my neighbors, my in-laws and the UPS and FedEx guys.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
So, the way we express things either as supposed secrets or supposed euphemisms says a lot about us.<\/p>\n
Even when we whisper them or try to camouflage them with a sound-alike.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
Clean up after your pet. That admonishment appears both at the Plaza and Carnegie Park. The placement of plastic bag dispensers is a good idea. But it works better when the dispensers are serviced. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unlikely the stashes of bags have been replaced in months. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s walk the talk as we walk our pups. There are too many cases of people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shoes picking up some of that canine s-word.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
Why is it that of the six electronic message boards owned by the East and West school districts, only two of them (one for each district) are operational?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you say it softly, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not so bad. Now what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that supposed to mean? Well, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a conclusion I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve reached after years and years of observation as to how people choose to express themselves. Shouting out a word \u00e2\u20ac\u201d if you overlook the possibility of rousing someone from slumber \u00e2\u20ac\u201d is worse than whispering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=808"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":810,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808\/revisions\/810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}