Monday, May 07, 2012

Shocking Language

You know, I try to keep up with the times with technology, current events, and language. I listen to the grandkids and try to grab on to a few of the phrases they use. I read books, see movies. I'm with it. I'm hip. But there is one word whose current usage just hits me the wrong way......bitch.

I knew bitch was a female dog or if you called someone a bitch it was an insult, a pejorative usually considered profane. But then I started hearing young women using it to each other, not as an insult but as a kind of back handed compliment. When I heard it used like that I was very uncomfortable. Okay so the language was changing but I could never use the word bitch that way and certainly not with a friend of my generation. Actually not with any generation I might have a conversation with.

I'm appalled that there are currently two television sit-coms, that while the actual word Bitch isn't in the title, it is implied, and everyone understands that "B" means Bitch. The first is a take off of the book Good Christian Bitches. The network decided to call it GCB. Kind of cover up the Christian and Bitches relationship. And the other is Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23.

So, friends, it looks like I am falling behind the times. Becoming one of the older generation who sit around and grump about the younger generation who are going to hell in an handbasket.

10 comments:

Babs said...

Count me among your group! There are a few others that my grandchildren KNOW not to use around Grammy too........

Calypso said...

I also am with you. Anita and I just watched the entire 9 seasons of Top Chef. Much of the language was shocking and totally unnecessary.

We moved on to Top Chef Masters where more credited chefs compete (read older). The difference in using bad language was remarkable. It indicated to us that this is a youth driven phenomenon. We feel it is a passage of sorts (which cannot happen fast enough for us).

Mature folks realize that the use of these foul words should be reserved for special moments, making talking trash so much more powerful. A little goes a LONG ways.

BELINDA KLEIN said...

Hi Billie,
My daughter was going through a tough time at school with another girl who liked to throw that word around regularly. So I told her to get down on all fours and start barking like a dog. Worked a treat, nasty girl was shocked into silence.
I am yours an BABS newest follower.
Regards Belinda x

Bob Mrotek said...

This kind of reminds me of a remark once made by Mark Twain. He said that if Jesus Christ came back today he probably wouldn't want to be a "Christian".

Billie Mercer said...

Calypso, I'd like to think it is like bathroom humor for little boys. Unfortunately I don't think this language is going to fade. It seems to me to have entered the language of young people through Rap music and they hear it so often it has lost any offense for them to use it.

Billie Mercer said...

Belinda, glad to have you as a reader. I'm glad your daughter found a way to deal with the "shocking language."

Billie Mercer said...

Bob, I love that quote. I don't understand all the hate and the mean, vicious things that are happening around the world.

alcuban said...

To add another comment to this rather fuddy-duddy thread, what bugs me the most is the constant use of profanity in comedy, as if it were an essential ingredient. Check out Bill Maher. I don't blush at four-letter words, but it seems like a cheap way of making people laugh.

al

Billie Mercer said...

Al, maybe we laughed at the profanity at first because we were shocked but now the four-letter words don't make me giggle, blush or anything. They are boring.

Shannon Casey said...

Hi Billie, I'm Shannon and my husband and I moved to San Miguel from Patzcuaro about a year ago.
You know, most of the time,in my head, I'm about 35 and when I look in the mirror it's always a bit of a shock. One of the things that is always a constant reminder of how old I am is the language of today. Nice to know I'm not alone.