Like most grandmothers, mine frowns on swearing. Every now and then one of her children will slip some vulgarity into the dinner conversation, sometimes just as an oversight, but often to see their mother’s reaction. The most classic, which lies somewhere between the two motivations, is a spill followed by an oath, then punctuated by an admonition so immediate and instinctual it can only come from a matriarch who has spent many years reprimanding her bright and mischievous six children. The sound goes something like this:
[crash]-shit–Jon!
Over a recent family dinner, though, my eldest aunt, in casual conversation, used a particular word referring to a human waste product, and did not receive the usual scolding. There was a brief pause as we all felt that something was not quite right, but were unable to identify exactly what it was.
“Mother has announced,” my aunt began, “that ‘shit’ is not a bad word because it’s not used to curse people. The only bad words are those used to curse people, like damn.” We raucously pondered this for several minutes, trying out different conversational uses, feeling the holes in her theory. Overall, though, this seemed like a good hypothesis — words are not bad in and of themselves, directing ill will at another person is. As the laughter died down, we realized that we needed proof. We needed to hear her say it. The racket to cheers of encouragement, then faded into a brief hush of anticipation as we all turned to her, fervent to hear her utter this one word.
And she did. It was fast and soft, slipping from her lips quickly. Her aging voice, though often laced with traces of a Long Island left forty years earlier, was now sweet with forbidden whimsy. As her audience roared with applause and laughter, she blushed a soft shade of pink below her brilliant white hair and dancing eyes.
We tried in vain to get her to expand her new vocabulary, preferably to include a word referring to copulation, but she was done. She’d demonstrated her belief in her theory, though, and that was enough. The proclamation had come down from our esteemed matriarch — use whatever words you choose, but choose them kindly.
There need to be more grandmothers like mine.