hesitance

Foul-mouthed

Watching the news I all of a sudden perk up. The next segment was about the dubious honor of living in the most foul-mouthed country in the world. Did that surprise me? Heck no. We, Dutch, tend to speak our minds. And apparently we all have dirty minds.

Disagree

Also, we are not easily satisfied. We never agree on anything. It’s not by chance we have the most political parties in the world, as well. Everybody needs to speak up and if there is just one tiny little issue you disagree with, well you start your own party. Easy, peasy.

Cussing and swearing

While I kind of like this ‘having your own vision’, I am dead against all the cursing and swearing around me every day, all day. It has literally become a part of life to cuss your way through everything. We cannot seem to be able to utter one sentence without a few 4-letter words or some terrible disease thrown in. Is this very different from other countries and their languages? Well, yes.

Comment

Whenever I comment on this issue my friends all wonder about this statement. ‘You mean to tell me they don’t use many more cuss and swearwords in the US?’ Ehm, no. What you learn from movies isn’t quite the ‘real’ life. On public tv stations any ‘bad’ word is beeped over. And I’m talking about ‘innocent’ words like sh.t. Also, I only know American moms and dads who will correct their kids saying bad words. Not that I know the whole American population, mind you. All I know is that bad manners, which include bad language, is corrected.

News

The news discussion about this issue continues. On how easy and without thinking we wish the worst diseases on another. Something other countries don’t even think about. We use slang (sexual) words for body parts and profanities with every other word in the language. No matter where you are and who you are speaking to. The newscaster wondered how we sank so low.

The c-word

After hearing an upper-class lady use the c-word on public television time and again, when she couldn’t think of the other word she wanted to say, this discussion went haywire. Isn’t it time for us to clean up our act, and thus our language? According to studies it all comes from our inheritance. We never, like most other European countries, came from royalty.

William of Orange

Our founding father, William of Orange, was but a quiet ‘city-holder’ appointed by the king of Spain. He was gifted three cities in what is now called the Netherlands. After that he took care of the several provinces surrounding the cities and united the states into a country named: Holland, now The Netherlands. He was named Prince and from then on we had a kingdom.

Reason

Is that the actual reason we speak a foul language? I highly doubt it. But who am I to dispute this truth that many professors spend a lot of time on. Quite frankly I think it still has to do with upbringing. When we kids uttered a ‘bad word’ we were corrected by our parents and teachers. And not in a foul language. They gave a good example. When I hear young parents shout at their offspring in 4-letter words, I don’t wonder their kids will use the same words later on.

Party against cursing

I’m not kidding you, we even have a party against cursing. Not that they make any difference, but hey at least they try! No, I am not very proud of being a citizen of the most foulspeaking country in the world. I am conscious of what I say and which words to use. Most of the time.

Let us know

What do you think? Should we all be able to say what we think, even if it’s not in the prettiest language? And how about wishing people bad diseases- Oh not for real of course, but just because it’s part of language? Do you believe in the importance of words? Please, Let us know at ‘redactiesophiamagazine@gmail.com’