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Blog Entry 7 of 68 The Write Words

I hope to write about anything and everything that comes into my mind, as long as it is in good taste. I hope to communicate effectively and stimulate thought and conversation. I can't wait to get started!

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Potty mouth -- or not

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Contributed by: Erin Di Paolo on 12/1/2006

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I got together for dinner with three of my best friends. Not that there needs to be a special occasion for us to hang out, but we just happened to be celebrating Lori and Tip's birthdays. The last time the four of us spent time together was on our trip to Vegas (see my story "What Happens in Vegas Never Happened").

Whenever the four of us hang out, there is always deep conversation, tears, a lot of laughter, and the three of them ganging up on me. Why? Maybe because I have the biggest mouth of all of us. More likely is the fact that I have an opinion on just about every topic. And, of course, I am usually right, which they have a hard time swallowing.

On this particular night, we hit on many topics, but one of the main ones was whether we use inappropriate language or not. By this, I mean four-letter words, although not all of them are actually four letters. Anyway, you get the picture. I am not sure why or how we arrived at this topic, but we spent a great deal of time and emotion on it.

The first issue I brought up was that bad words are only bad because society has deemed them as such. I mean, words have certain meanings because we have given them those meanings. At one point, someone decided that certain words were bad and we should not say them. The word, in and of itself, is not bad; we have made it such.

Secondly, we talked about times when it is perfectly normal, if not entirely acceptable, to curse. We agreed that using cuss words just to use them is not something we aspire to. But when we are angry -- like when we slam our fingers in the car door, for example -- we will likely say something and it won't be "thank you, God!"

Two of my friends, Tip and Lori, said they do not cuss, that they make every effort to avoid it, especially around their children. Melissa and I confessed that we do, indeed, use expletives, but that this was not always the case. In recent years we have acquired our potty mouths.

So the likely question followed: what changed in our lives so that we now use language we didn't use to? We discussed one's environment and if that could be the cause of bad language. We also talked about when, if ever, it is appropriate to use bad lanugage. It was a stimulating conversation that really made me wanting to clean up my mouth.

Did we come to any conclusions? Well, yes and no. I did admit that my language had gone down the tubes since I returned to work several years ago, after being a stay-at-home mom for 12 years. Being in a stressful environment , working with 800 children, having a supervisor you can't stomach -- all of these can lead a non-potty mouth to become a potty mouth. No doubt. Melissa agreed with this, as she herself recently returned to the job market after a lengthy hiatus.

Of course other things are factored in as well. One can't simply blame one's environment or stressors in life. We all need to be responsible for our own actions.

I, for one, am trying to clean up my language. But if I happen to hit my hand with a hammer while doing jobs at home, please do not expect me to thank God. Chances are really good that I will be yelling something that is quite contrary to what the Almighty would want to hear!

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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Erin Di Paolo

Denver , CO

Erin Di Paolo has posted 68 blog entries and 1 comment since joining on 3/18/2006. Erin Di Paolo 's average blog rating is 4.45.

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