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There are several things that just really tick me off that people say whether they’re trying to be derogatory or not.  These things are: cussing, bragging without first acquiring the rights, and talking behind somebody’s back.  The biggest one in my book is cussing.  Without cuss words, I really don’t know what would happen to many people’s language.  About half their vocabulary would be thrown out the window if that happened.  I’ve heard people use cussing so exclusively that if somebody were to put a beeper machine on their mouth they would sound like a time bomb, just waiting to go off; beep….beep…beep… beep.beep…boom.  The question behind all of that is why in the world do they do it?  Is it for popularity or to look tough or what?

When I hear the word “cussing,” I think of my past experiences and obsessions with it.  Way back in 5­^th and 6^th grade, I wanted so desperately to be the coolest kid at school that I took up cussing.  At that age, if you say the word “crap,” everybody looks at you as if you were living life on the edge.  So I decided to take advantage of everybody’s ignorance and use real cuss words so it would look like I was over the edge and living like a true “bad boy.”  It got started real gradually.  First, I started quoting what “cool kids” said that I thought were bad, such as; “Dude, Dan said to Margaruite to @%&* off, man.”  The next step was using “damn” (they used it in the Bible so that meant it wasn’t a cuss word).  From there on it was all downhill, because I thought that I was practically already saying them, so I might as well use them to my advantage and become “cool.” 

Personally, I think that the effort to become “cool” is the main reason people cuss. Like my case, the effort to fit in and be the coolest kid in school sometimes requires drastic measures.  They’re not just words, they mean so much more than that.  I watched my attitude change from a good kid to a rebel at age 12, not exactly a good age to start.  When I entered middle school, I got hooked up with some good friends, and they got me back on track, which was good, because if I’d kept that up, I’d be wheeling and dealing out on the streets by now.

By definition “cuss” means a curse word.  And one of the definitions of “curse” is to wish calamity upon someone.  So, essentially, when somebody is cussing at someone or just talking to them using cuss words, they’re hoping that great misfortunes happen to them.  That’s not an entirely nice thing to say to someone, which, I guess is one of the reasons they do it.  Which brings me to another point; cussing is extremely disrespectful.  When someone’s cussing at me, the first thing that pops into my head is that this kid or person is being extremely stupid and I get this slight impression that he/she doesn’t like me very much.  And just imagine when they’re talking to someone who’s their elder and what must be going through a seventy-year-old lady’s head when she hears a cuss word.  Remember that back then, “crap” was a bad word.

Cussing is an extremely disrespectful attitude-changing things to say.  I’ve seen it change a good kid that I was into this highly disrespectful dumb&*~ just because I changed a few words of my vocabulary.  One of the things that I found out real quick was that it takes more of a man to not cuss, and less of a tough kid to cuss.  It’s way easier to go with the flow.  That’s why I try to go upstream on practically everything in my life, yeah, it’s harder, but it shows true character and courage to pull that off.

Myles J. Daley, age 17.  contact; kddaley@earthlink.net

Copyright 2005 Myles J. Daley

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