Recently, I was involved in, or rather witnessed, a conversation between my dad and one of our children that defines intergenerational differences. It started like this: We shared dinner and talked about experiences returning to work after COVID. This is our child’s first full-time job, and my dad was asking about different aspects of work life. At some point, a reply to one of those questions included an observation that the “F-word” was used occasionally in meetings as an emphasis word.
Unexpectedly the conversation became heated. The sides were drawn, and my dad truly recoiled. He said he was shocked and offended to learn that people used this profanity casually in a professional setting. Our child held his own, explaining that the meaning of the word depends “on time and place” and thinks “the word, when used as an emphatic, has been normalized in movies, locker rooms, and sports as an emphatic.”
I interjected and asked, “is this an age difference or a geographical one?” Our child lives in an urban area, and my dad lives in northern Michigan. As the conversation continued, we came to a grudging agreement that this is a misunderstanding that represents an age gap — of some 65 years.
Our child insisted that emphatic words are part of pop culture and even appear in titles of movies. “Inglorious Bastards,” for example. To understand the role of pop culture in normalizing swear words, you might remember the 1970s tv hit “All in the Family,” when 50 years ago, the lead character Archie Bunker swore on national tv for emphasis. He said to his horrified wife Edith, “That ain’t swearing, Edith. GD. The first word there is God, ain’t it? How can that be a swear word, the most popular word in the Bible. The second word, that’s damn, that’s a perfectly good word, you hear that all the time, like they dam the river to keep it from flooding, see? Think now of the barrage of salty language in more current movies like “Kill Bill” or “Dejango.”
No one in my family is advocating the use of profanity; however, swear words, over time, have become normalized. While the Associated Press Stylebook has rules for publishing obscenities in newspapers, the AP Stylebook does include rules for how to spell a few choice swear words. In fact, between 2011 and 2012, The New York Times went from saying, “The Times virtually never prints obscene words.” To, “The Times very rarely publishes obscene words.”
AP standards editor Tom Kent said ten years ago, “Society evolves – and news organizations evolve with it. The AP has evolved. A decade or two ago, we tried very hard to avoid using the word ‘hell’ if we didn’t have to. I think we’ve moved beyond that now. And five years from now, lord knows what we’ll be saying.”
We are normalizing bad words. Whether in the pop culture or the work culture, repeated use of profanity eventually dulls us down. We seem to accept and repeat. Imagine my surprise when I saw on Instagram an artist selling a Valentine’s Day painting with scrolled handwriting that said, “Just go do more of whatever makes you really f-ing happy.” The post had 239 likes.
It is generational, and I can see both positions—our child with one stance and my dad with the other. What’s next?
