While watching a recent NCAA football game I heard a different version of a common expression. Billy Bob Thornton, famous ne’er-dowell and occasional actor, uttered the phrase during a T-Mobile commercial.
I don’t consider myself well versed in language, especially ever-changing, possibly inappropriate language. But either way, I was surprised. The original phrase, one my Dear Mother was very much opposed to, involved the Biblical word for donkey.
She abhorred that word and chastised me once for using it in her presence. I was barely 21 and thought I was nearing maturity so I retorted by repeatedly repeating it several times. Mother was not amused. If she’d had a plum bush switch close by, I’m sure she’d have used it.
I was embarrassed later on when I reconsidered my actions. I spent the rest of her life trying to make it up to her. I did counter that incident with the memory that she taught me, “Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you.”
I’m constantly amused by how we humans treat our languages. We invent words, determine some of those words are unacceptable for polite company, and quickly begin using a synonym for the banned word. We’re making the same point, explaining the same sentiment, and conveying the same thought—but without the finger wagging or criticism. Of course, I don’t think any word is offensive, dangerous, or harmful to children. They know them before we know they do.
Politicians, men of authority, and religious leaders realize this but insist we have control over language that is arbitrarily deemed offensive. Evidently, dropping an F-bomb doesn’t quite convey that aura. Yet they have no problem with lying, false accusations, or inflammatory rhetoric.
The word Billy Bob is not saying starts with an A and ends with two S’s. We are all familiar with that word. Southern Baptists see it in the Good Book quite frequently. And the phrase Angelina’s former beau edits is common throughout the South, accompanied by the word “whoop.” Any variation of the phrase usually implies that someone is quite mad and intends to deliver punishment to another person’s posterior.
I was a bit perturbed with the T-Mobile version, partially because I’m a loyal TMobile customer and also because I hate any action that violates the First Amendment. And I really hate it when that action is stupid.
My first thought was whether butt is considered inappropriate. I understand that “opening a can of whoop butt” is almost as stupid as whup up, but at least butt is a synonym of the evidently inappropriate in polite company *ss. At least, I think it is.
I’ve noticed when I mistakenly tune in to Naked and Afraid on the Discovery Channel, it doesn’t blur out the competitors’ posteriors. If we see one in hi-def on television, does that mean we can now say it? If so, why didn’t Billy Bob say it? You know anyone named Billy Bob has used that word, and likely the whole phrase, hundreds of times. Censorship is so confusing.
Speaking of that, why is Naked and Afraid on Discovery?
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