Bad Words

In our second episode, Shanny talks with Dona Warren, the Director of the Critical Thinking Center at UWSP, and Ross Tangedal, Assistant Professor of English and Director of the Cornerstone Press at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, about swear words.

In 1972 (49 years ago!) George Carlin released his famous bit "Seven Dirty Words."  I wanted to talk about this subject to emphasize that college is a place where we can explore anything we are curious about.  And I am very curious about swear words.  What makes certain words "bad"?  Why are they off-limits?  What can we learn about culture, gender, class, and history by thinking seriously about dirty words?

Transcript

Shanny Luft: 0:04

Hi, thanks for listening to No Cure for Curiosity. I'm Shanny Luft, the Associate Dean of General Education at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. The purpose of this podcast is to promote the value of a broad liberal arts education, including the ability to draw connections across different areas of study. A few weeks ago, Netflix released this new series, The History of Swear Words, it was narrated by Nicolas Cage, and it was kind of a light hearted exploration of curse words. They brought in comedians and linguists and scientists and historians to talk about what they know and have studied about curse words. So I thought it'd be fun to watch the series, and then talk about curse words with two of my colleagues. Ross Tangedal is assistant professor of English and director of the Cornerstone Press at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. His research focuses on American print and publishing culture, bibliography, textual editing, and in particular, the works of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and writers of the American Midwest. I'm also going to be talking to Dona Warren. Dona has her PhD in philosophy from the University of Minnesota and is currently a philosophy professor at UWSP, as well as the director of the Critical Thinking Center. I should say upfront that in talking about these words, Dona and Ross and I are going to say the words we're not going to use any racial slurs, but we are going to say words that are offensive are sometimes considered derogatory. There's a big debate in journalism right now about the difference between use versus mention. I think that distinction is important, but not everybody does. If you're uncomfortable with George Carlin's Seven Dirty Words, this may not be the episode for you. Ross and Dona and I talked about swear words for two hours. We had a fantastic conversation. I've edited it down to about a half an hour, and I hope you enjoy it. So you're ready to get started?

Ross Tangedal: 1:50

Yeah.

Shanny Luft: 1:51

Excellent. You're supposed to say fuck yeah.

Ross Tangedal: 1:54

Fuck Yeah.

Shanny Luft: 1:56

Did you guys watch any of this Netflix show called The History of Swear Words?

Ross Tangedal: 1:59

Yes.

Dona Warren: 1:59

Yeah.

Shanny Luft: 2:00

It was this six episode documentary. And each episode is about one word. So there's an episode about fuck, shit, bitch, dick, pussy, and damn. My first question. Did you have you watched them all?

Ross Tangedal: 2:12

I watched the first four. And it was late at night. And I started falling asleep. So I might have slept through pussy and damn. I'm blushing by the way through the podcast.

Shanny Luft: 2:23

Right? So that's actually a good place to start with what is our line for certain words. And the place I want to begin is actually to ask you, each of you, where are you both from? Because I'm very interested in our geographies, and then how that relates to words we're comfortable with. So Ross, can you start off, tell us a little bit about where you're from and what your background is.

Ross Tangedal: 2:43

So I was born and raised in a small town in Montana, in northeastern Montana, so it's just south of Canada and just west of North Dakota. So we're way up in the corner, rural farm community. We have a farm a 4000 acre farm and ranch. My dad runs angus beef cattle has done it for you know, 50 years. So I grew up in an agricultural, small rural agricultural community in Montana and North Dakota.

Shanny Luft: 3:12

Dona, we'll go to you next.

Dona Warren: 3:13

I am from Morehead, Minnesota. And many people don't know where that is. So I say it's right across the river from Fargo, North Dakota. Exactly. So I am on right on the other side of North Dakota from where Ross was raised. Fargo-Morehead was, I would say a small city when I was growing up. Fargo in particular is a lot larger now. So I would I'm I'm wondering if I would describe it as rural, I would really not describe it as rural. Both of my parents were college professors. And so I grew up right across the street from the university where they taught. But certainly you didn't have to go far out of town, like a mile or two out of town and you hit farmland. So it was that kind of interesting transitional space between small city and rural.

Shanny Luft: 3:58

That was one of the things I think about curse words I find really interesting is our where we're raised and where we're from, I think can kind of determine what words we're comfortable with and what words we're not comfortable with. And then where it's appropriate to curse. I do either of you have any thoughts about that? About your backgrounds and your geographies and its relationship to cursing.

Ross Tangedal: 4:16

You know, on a farm, there's an awful lot of swearing. You make up swear words. I'm surprised in the documentary during the episode on shit he said "shit ass," and that's a word that my dad has used to describe a cow that he is angry at many many times and even as a child and shit ass, shit ass but then it's funny. It's almost like we get back into town and dad would shut that off. You know that you talk one way out on the farm. And then you're kind of back in town and and you talk a little bit differently when you're back in town.

Shanny Luft: 4:45

The other part of this I was really interested in asking about as your childhoods. Swear words they are like magical. They--particularly when you're a kid--the more you tell a kid you know these words are dangerous. They're off limits. They accomplish something that other words don't accomplish. Dona, do you have any particular thoughts about that?

Dona Warren: 5:04

Yeah, I mean, I, my grandmother would always say,"ickadoozy!" and that meant "god dammit." And I don't know where that word came from. I don't know if she made it up. So you know, she would drop something on the kitchen floor. She'd

break a plate: 5:17

"ickadoozy!" I can still hear her ickadoozy, and her mother used to say"gallis!" So occasionally there would be a "gallis", which is probably a corrupted Germanic something or other because that was the language that they spoke. So I did hear those. But nothing that other people outside my family would recognize as like profanity.

Shanny Luft: 5:39

Dona, have you ever said ickadoozy in your life?

Dona Warren: 5:42

I have.

Shanny Luft: 5:42

For any reason?

Dona Warren: 5:43

There are certain things that that's like the only thing that can capture it. It's not even like it because it's not bad enough to be like a god dammit. There's a certain like a playful frustration to ickadoozy.

Shanny Luft: 5:56

How about you, Ross, the thoughts about your about your childhood and curse words.

Ross Tangedal: 6:00

One thing that was never said was was fuck. That was that was never. I grew up with lots of people, big family, lots of folks. But the f-word was something that was never uttered. Jesus Christ, that one was plentiful. Oh, for God's sake, that was also that's the ickadoozy of mine is Oh, for God's sake. My folks, though they're not they don't swear a lot. Unless you could get away with it by quoting movies. You were if you were quoting a movie, it was funny. So that was like a comedy routine. You can imagine Shanny and Dona, I was very performative, as a child.

Dona Warren: 6:33

I can't see that at all.

Ross Tangedal: 6:34

Right. And my family is very performative. So we'd always do sketches, line readings. And so that's when it was okay to say things like the f-word or more blue language because you're being funny, you know, it's not out of anger, or it's it's not out of rage, it's out. It's a routine, right?

Shanny Luft: 6:50

Swear words have this interesting. I think there's issues of region that come in as we talked about age, gender, and then class, right? So swear words have like all of these cultural embedded signifiers that class issue is really interesting to me.

Dona Warren: 7:05

That's really interesting, because I had a conversation with my mother about this. She was talking about it, because she is a little more prone to swear than I am. She will say shit more than I will. We were referring to this and just sort of reflecting on it. And then she said, but you didn't hear me swear when when you were growing up, did you? And I said no. You don't swear much now. But I certainly never heard you swear when I was growing up. And she said no, I didn't swear when I was teaching. And I said, No, I don't swear when I teach, either. Like in the classroom, right? And I said, You mean like in the when you're in the classroom, you didn't swear? And she said no. Before I retired, I didn't swear. And she definitely thought that it would be inappropriate for her when she was a mathematics professor, to swear in any context. I think that was very much that that's clearly a class thing, right, when she was inhabiting the role of university professor in the community. She did not swear in any context.

Ross Tangedal: 8:06

I don't know if this is where you want to go, Shanny, but this is a good I've got a good transition from Dona's point because her her parents were professors. And I grew up again in a blue collar background, you know, dad's a farmer. And he was an agronomist, you know, a fertilizer engineer. He worked an elevator after he farmed, and then my mom's a nurse an Rn.

Shanny Luft: 8:24

Your dad was a fertilizer engineer?

Ross Tangedal: 8:25

Yeah,

Shanny Luft: 8:26

Your dad knew shit.

Ross Tangedal: 8:27

He knows shit. Shit is just, you know, it's nitrogen and phosphorus and l he knows his shit. So I grew up in a blue collar, there's no professors around. And when I started teaching, I'd swear not like awful, just a screed of terrible f-bombs. But every so often, you just sort of kind of place one in there, it's kind of intentional and it's for effective, it jolts the student out of, I've tried to be a little bit better and not swear as much and be a little more cautious. But at the same time, it clearly became kind of a leveling agent so that students recognize that like I wasn't this ivory tower better than you person. I'm just some guy that can swear too just you know, and there's so was something really equalizing to some degree about that. And even now at Point as I continue in my career here, every so often a well placed, as they call it in the documentary a swear, I've never heard it called that before.

Shanny Luft: 9:29

What did you hear? What word would you use?

Ross Tangedal: 9:30

Curse words or swear words or bad words? Actually, they were bad words,

Shanny Luft: 9:33

One of that very Protestant of us. They're bad words. There's good words, there's bad words. I can't see myself sort of totally removing all of the blue language out of my out of my teaching, because there's a way for me to communicate with students a certain way when they need that kind of communication. Also, I think it's to try to normalize myself so that like your mother Dona was saying, No, I'm going to be a certain way when I'm I will be this person I do that to some degree but a so I want them to kind of ee myself I don't know if that' a different generation of teac er that's a different generation the things that fascinated me about swear words that they get of Professor like we're m re allowed to be ourselves a lit le more in front of studen into a little bit on the show is a swear word can refer to something negative, but also refer to something positive, right? If you can refer to shit, this dinner tastes like shit. But you could also say this is good shit. The word is so malleable, it can be the opposite of itself. It's amazing to me that words can sort of like take on the opposite of their meaning and still communicate something that's why I went to the English professor in this conversation.

Ross Tangedal: 10:38

Well, the wheels are spinning I mean, fuck is the most valuable of all of them. It can take on every I think he can actually take I haven't heard of fuckly, which would be an adverb adverbial usage, but it can take on almost every every every single part of speech. And so there is something about fuck that is very powerful in that way. Now shit is interesting. Because Yeah, when we talk about the, you know, that's the shit. Well, what exactly are we sort of, by the way, that the more I think about it, I think being called a piece of shit might be the worst. The worst thing you can be called. Because if someone means it, you know, you know what you are. You're, you're a piece of shit. It's like, wow, that's like, that's like the worst. Like, you can call me an asshole and call me a fuckhead. Like, dipshits also a favorite, but something about being called up a piece of shit is really like, sharp.

Shanny Luft: 11:27

That can we just hold on for a second? I love your point. That being called a piece of shit. It really communicates something different than being called an asshole. If you were to ask me what the worst thing you could be called is my first thought was being called a motherfucker.

Ross Tangedal: 11:41

Nah.

Shanny Luft: 11:42

Is that worse?

Ross Tangedal: 11:43

Oh, no.

Shanny Luft: 11:43

Why?

Ross Tangedal: 11:44

I don't know. Maybe it's the sanitation of motherfucker. Like, that just doesn't mean it's because fuck has become so ubiquitous and you can use it in so many ways. It's lost some of its sharpness. Whereas piece of shit. Hmm. dipshit Hmm. There's something there that just like degrades. It just pulls you pulls you down.

Shanny Luft: 12:04

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. We were just talking before about like how a swear word can also be a positive thing. If there's a way that you could call someone a motherfucker in a way that's almost complimentary.

Ross Tangedal: 12:14

Yeah,

Dona Warren: 12:15

that motherfucker actually did it

Ross Tangedal: 12:17

motherfucker. Oh, yeah, but not piece of shit. You can't do that. Right.

Dona Warren: 12:21

That piece of shit. actually did it? That's not gonna work. Oh, yeah, I think I think that's right. I think that's right. And it's interesting. I think that that I don't think there's anything that I could say better than you just how it hits you. Right. I agree. Motherfucker doesn't hit in the same way as piece of shit hits.

Shanny Luft: 12:39

Your point about piece of shit. I'll be thinking about this for days. Also, why does it have to be a piece somehow being a piece makes it worse if you're not even the whole shit.

Ross Tangedal: 12:49

I'm back back to the great purveyor of masculine swear words. Glengarry Glen Ross-- playwright (for those that do not know, American playwright David Mamet)--he wrote a special part for Alec Baldwin in the film version, which is really excellent. 1992 and Baldwin plays this this version this man named Blake and it's a swear laden, it's very Mamet, the swear words become kind of poetry, and the sharpness, it's all about the sound and the timbre of the swear words. Alec Baldwin is doing his shtick, he's going around, basically demeaning everyone this is like David Mamet's thesis right men demean each other that's like life and at the end he goes he's talking about his watch. Like you know I got this watch this watch cost more than your car. And Ed Harris is like you know, I'm not gonna take any more of this shit. And he goes no sit down pal eat shit you are shit so hit the bricks pal because you're going out so you're shit not the shit you're shit

Shanny Luft: 13:44

right

Ross Tangedal: 13:44

There's just it's when swear words can at least from from as an English professor from sort of a literary perspective when, when swear words can be utilized wholly as part of the language they're not just explanatory. They're not just blue words that are meant to shock and and make you or they're almost they're transgressive. It's it's a transgressive thing and it's about at least for Mamet demeaning to such a degree that there is no build up, there's no coming back from from that kind of immense, masculine demeaning.

Shanny Luft: 14:18

Right. There that movie, you're right, is, is like a just a poetic exploration of curse words.

Ross Tangedal: 14:26

It is

Shanny Luft: 14:26

so many lines from that movie. At one point, someone asks Alec Baldwin, what's your name? and Alec Baldwin responds, What's my name?

Ross Tangedal: 14:33

Fuck you. That's my name. And Jack Lemmon at the end of the movie is playing Shelly Levine and he goes to Kevin Spacey, who's playing Williamson, the office director and he goes, you know h's picking his teeth and Lemmo goes, you're a real piece of s it, Williamson. See? It's jus it's an automatic kind of, I d n't know. Yeah, Mamet, swear Kin. No, nobody, no one plays the piano like Mamet.

Shanny Luft: 14:58

There's a way I don't know if this works in reverse, where men undermine other men by calling them female. Right? Yeah, right like the word, bitch. Right? Those are words

Dona Warren: 15:08

Or pussy or cunt. Yeah. Because I think the difference. I think that both bitch and pussy occupy a space which is similar to the n-word. Not quite.

Ross Tangedal: 15:20

Yeah. Yeah.

Dona Warren: 15:21

But it's it's words that particularly bitch women can call other women. And it's different than a man using it.

Ross Tangedal: 15:29

Yes, absolutely.

Dona Warren: 15:30

Especially "cunt." I mean, I think "cunt" is even closer. I mean, that that that woman would not call another woman that probably.

Ross Tangedal: 15:37

never

Dona Warren: 15:38

No,

Ross Tangedal: 15:39

no, no,

Dona Warren: 15:39

that's well,

Shanny Luft: 15:40

Not in the United States in Great Britain, "cunt" is a very common word, right? Um, but but I Dona I want you to stay on that topic. Because what I find really interesting about bitch, like the word slut, like the N word is the way in which they've been reclaimed, right. There's an Alanis Morissette song. I'm a bitch, right? I'm a bitch. I'm a lover. I'm a child. I'm a mother.

Ross Tangedal: 16:00

That's not Alanis Morisette. That's not that's not Alanis Morisette.

Shanny Luft: 16:04

Did she cover it?

Ross Tangedal: 16:05

Probably. I'll look it up while you're talking.

Shanny Luft: 16:08

All right. There are certain like the word slut there certain words that it seems like are trying to be reclaimed or are being reclaimed by a group to be redefined to diminish their power?

Dona Warren: 16:21

Yeah. I think personally, I think bitch is, been that Meredith Brooks, Ross, writes in the chat.

Shanny Luft: 16:28

My Google says Alanis Morissette sung this song, I wonder if it's possible that the internet has led me astray.

Dona Warren: 16:35

No,

Ross Tangedal: 16:36

never

Dona Warren: 16:37

never.

Shanny Luft: 16:39

I mean, it's in Wikipedia, guys.

Dona Warren: 16:43

I think that's

Ross Tangedal: 16:44

Check my sources.

Dona Warren: 16:45

I have I have female friends who will unapologetically, um, refer to themselves as a bitch, either in general, or describing their behavior in a certain circumstance, I was being a bitch that day or right. And it's not I was being a bad person. Bitch in that context, or or in general, if it's, I'm a bitch, usually in the mouth of my friends, it means I am a strong woman who stands up for herself in sometimes socially inappropriate ways. But the fault there lies squarely on the part of the social norms. Right? I am behaving in ways that would be acceptable if I were a man, but I'm not a man. So now I am a bitch. In that context, bitch can be something you want to be, it means you're strong, it means you're assertive. It means you're all of those things that in a man would be praised. But what's what's interesting just in terms of like another level, even under that interpretation, that reclaiming of what, what bitch means. What we are saying then is, the word bitch is good. If it applies to a woman who is acting in a traditionally masculine way. So fundamentally, what is still good is the fundamentally masculine way of acting.

Shanny Luft: 18:08

You also you can't have a conversation about swear words, and not talk about George Carlin. Carlin had this really famous routine in 1972 the Seven Words You Can't Say on

Television in this order are: 18:18

shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits. What I think is really interesting about that is even the order of them like, you know, he thought about the rhythm of all of them. Like it ends with tits, the I think the least offensive of the seven. But it rhythmically sounds like it works best that way. And the power of that bit was he didn't really sit down and like you know, he didn't do a study of the words you can't say there was no list of words you can't say. He was just doing a comedy bit about the power of language. Carlin's point was how we imbue these words with power. Part of the bit is you know, there are hundreds of 1000s of words you can say and then there are seven you can't. These are the words we have put a fence around and made powerful. Part of the point Carlin is making is these words should not have that power. But if they didn't, it wouldn't be fun a funny bit anymore like. Like then having power is useful to a writer, to an artist, to a comedian, to an actor.

Dona Warren: 19:25

Right. Which made me wonder when they were in the documentary, when they were talking about words that fit that sort of the trajectory, the inevitable trajectory of these these words, as they become less and less offensive, will they then become less and less effective? Because their efficacy lies in their offensiveness to some extent, and then, and then will other words rise up to take their place? And if so, what will those words be because it does seem to be a feature. well, I don't know. I defer to Ross, but it seems as though it might be a feature of language that there is a range of permissibility. And there always has to be an outer edge of the impermissible and that's where profanity is, that's where the curse words are. So if if we reclaim fuck, what what goes into the place of fuck? And I remember there was in the documentary they said surveys of, you know, 20 year olds. It's slurs that have taken that, that place as things that they think are unsayable, which makes sense, but I can't imagine slurs that the thing about fuck, or damnit, or goddamn goddamnit is they can be sort of said just globally without a particular object. They can just be this. I'm talking about the situation here.

Ross Tangedal: 20:45

Yep.

Dona Warren: 20:46

Pussy doesn't work that way. Pussy is aimed at a person. Dick is aimed at a person, it seems like slurs are always aimed at a person. So I'm wondering what will what will if anything, I think inevitably, something must serve that that role as just sort of a profane ejaculation like fuck, or shit.

Shanny Luft: 21:08

Right? We need transgressive words, in a couple of decades, shit is going to become crap.

Ross Tangedal: 21:13

Yep,

Shanny Luft: 21:13

The words just become less powerful over time. The reason I keep coming back to comedians is because I think they think of the power of language maybe more than anyone in our culture other than maybe playwrights, right? And so and so. The power of a word when you say a curse word, or when you don't say a curse word, right? There are clean comedians, Jerry Seinfeld, said he there was a time when he cursed, but he found it was a lot of comedians will say it's, you can get an audience to laugh, but they're not laughing at the joke exactly. They're kind of laughing at the transgression.

Ross Tangedal: 21:43

Yes.

Shanny Luft: 21:44

And so if you then remove the curse word, and they're not laughing, your joke wasn't actually funny. Right? Like he the challenge of making someone laugh and not cursing. Certain comedians, like Jerry Seinfeld will say, that's actually a bigger challenge.

Ross Tangedal: 21:57

That's fair. And when Seinfeld would say that, you know, Jerry Seinfeld is famously a cleaner, more clean comedian. But like, my favorite stand up comedian of all time is George Carlin. He did more with language than any other comedian because he was like an English major. He studied language and literature. And so he understood language, and he never tried to be like a movie star. Like he didn't try to jump he was a stand up and a writer like his entire life, you know. So I love that this documentary focuses so much on stand up comics.

Dona Warren: 22:30

Yes.

Ross Tangedal: 22:31

And how they manipulate because to me, Shanny, hit it on the head, there are very few, if any individuals who understand the power of curse words in particular, like people that stand up in front of other people, to make them laugh, and say words to make them laugh, they have to have just an a preternatural understanding of, of censorship, of pushing the bar, of going low or going high. Just an immense understanding of the human condition to get anything across to these strangers that are all two or three drinks in usually.

Shanny Luft: 23:10

This documentary ends the last episode's on the word damn. And before I watched any of them, that already struck me as weird because it seems like the documentary is going down.

Ross Tangedal: 23:20

Yeah, it starts with fuck.

Shanny Luft: 23:22

And yeah, exactly. I'm not even sure I would have thought of damn as a curse word. You can find that on Nickelodeon.

Ross Tangedal: 23:29

Yeah, it's so soft now. It's so

Shanny Luft: 23:31

Right. But that actually is maybe my favorite episode of the show. Because what it talked about is firstly reminded me that there is a category of curse words that are religious, and also damn is referencing the idea of damning somebody. And that used to be an extremely offensive curse word. Yeah, one of the points they make is the difference between damn and goddamn. God is like implied in the word damn. But when you don't imply it when you just say it, you do make the word worse.

Ross Tangedal: 24:00

Who says who just says damn, you say damn it,

Shanny Luft: 24:03

Right?

Ross Tangedal: 24:03

Who doesn't say go for it? God damn it just

Dona Warren: 24:06

You're in for a damn be in for a Goddamnit. I agree. It doesn't seem

Ross Tangedal: 24:10

Just get your goddamn goddamn goddamnit that's my family's word. By the way. It's all over my family. Goddamnit is the that's the phrase that that one. That's the one and my, my four year old daughter the other day. She always says she goes you said a bad word. Like I know I'm sorry. The other day she was she's trying to turn on the TV and I just my wife and I distinctly heard her say, Goddammit. No, that's one person's fault. Mine.

Shanny Luft: 24:43

Damn is also one of those words that can be used as a positive. If a Lamborghini goes by, you can say damn, right? If an attractive person goes by, right it can like reverse itself and suddenly be a reference to amazement or excitement. What's interesting to me about goddamn and damn and go to hell is the place of religion has changed in our culture

Ross Tangedal: 25:07

Very much so.

Shanny Luft: 25:07

And I wonder if it's to such a degree that what used to be the worst curse words, these kind of religious damnation is suffer in hell for eternity words don't have their power because religion doesn't hold the same place culturally that it used to 50, 100, 500 years ago.

Ross Tangedal: 25:24

But then the documentary makes a really good point, you two. So a lot of I like that they have the lexa-lexicographer, and they had the specialist on swear words, who wrote books on these things. And the lexicographer said, you know, we think that Oh, if we say, jeez, or cripes that we're somehow we're good, but we all know in language, if you just replace the bad word, with the word that sort frick is another way to sort of say, darn it, darn it, you're still saying, you mean, the bad thing, but you're censoring yourself? That does not mean that you're not saying the bad thing, if that makes sense. So like saying, jeez, that's Jesus. So if you're a religious person, Oh, geez. Oh, I can say that because Oh, geez, I'm not saying Jesus, but you you are.

Shanny Luft: 26:11

Yes, and the documentary taught me that those are called minced oaths.

Ross Tangedal: 26:15

Minced oaths?

Shanny Luft: 26:16

Yes.

Dona Warren: 26:17

Minced oaths.

Shanny Luft: 26:18

A minced Oath,

Dona Warren: 26:19

When I was growing up, I will say Jeepers Crow.

Shanny Luft: 26:22

Right, right. Jeepers crow is is a minced oath for Jesus Christ. I remember that. I had some Catholic friends in college who would say sugar honey iced tea. You ever heard that before?

Ross Tangedal: 26:35

That's how Nicolas Cage starts the shit episode. He's making iced tea says sugar honey iced tea. Yeah.

Shanny Luft: 26:41

I'm fascinated by minced oaths, because they're still referring to the thing. It's like you you create enough of a barrier or fence or distance that if you now say shoot, even though you're it only has power because of the curse word.

Ross Tangedal: 26:55

Right? Because people know what you're not saying.

Dona Warren: 26:58

Right?

Shanny Luft: 26:58

Right. Like we still have to. It's almost like people, people have to say interjections they have to curse. And they found like a it's like a loophole in curse words.

Ross Tangedal: 27:09

And this gets to a point about male and female masculine feminine, you know very much like values like women are supposed to be seen and not heard quiet and and put together and men are just allowed to be sort of wild, independent, insane people. And

Shanny Luft: 27:25

to me, that can be traced to a notion of womanhood that becomes really prominent in the 19th century, that women's roles is to make men better people.

Ross Tangedal: 27:35

There you go.

Dona Warren: 27:36

We're the civilizing force. So if I start if I start saying cunt, what hope is there for the world? Right?

Shanny Luft: 27:43

Right. Yeah, the idea is like if Ross and I say it, then hopefully a good woman will turn us around but if women start doing it, well, then we're doomed.

Dona Warren: 27:52

Yeah.

Shanny Luft: 27:52

Because your your role is to, you know, make men that's I think the perception that's like a

Ross Tangedal: 27:58

make make men better.

Dona Warren: 28:00

Yeah.

Ross Tangedal: 28:00

Oh, and it's still prominent in the culture, especially in political culture, they still use that old tired. Behind every man is a great woman. Well, that's the same, tired.

Shanny Luft: 28:07

Yeah. So women are saying, fuck this shit,

Dona Warren: 28:10

also, but it's also tied to I mean, for instance, one of the things that I've most this strikes me as similar might not being it's certainly not relevant to profanity, per se, but just the same general line of what's, what's what's okay, from gendered points of view. One of the things I love most about the pandemic is that I can teach in jeans, I have never in my lifetime taught in jeans. Right? And so, I am, because it's not something that many of my female colleagues do.

Shanny Luft: 28:41

But men do.

Dona Warren: 28:42

Men do all the time. But women dress up.

Ross Tangedal: 28:46

Yeah,

Dona Warren: 28:47

right.

Ross Tangedal: 28:47

You're getting into a great debate about gendered expectations.

Dona Warren: 28:51

Yes, yes,

Ross Tangedal: 28:52

of professors.

Dona Warren: 28:53

Exactly. Because, um, because it's, it's a, in an effort to sort of establish and maintain credibility. There's the feeling that you know, we should dress up more if I wear jeans, it's hard enough, right? It's hard enough to have students call me Dr. Warren, or even Dona, which I don't mind, as opposed to Mrs. Warren, which I do mind. And so in for similar ways I think that if a woman swore in class, as opposed to a man swearing in class it would be very, very different.

Ross Tangedal: 29:24

There is still sort of an inherent expectation for female professors to be maternal.

Dona Warren: 29:30

Oh, yeah.

Ross Tangedal: 29:31

Caring, empathetic, civilizing. I like Dona's civil--the civilizing force in the classroom.

Shanny Luft: 29:38

Yeah. It's been incredibly fun to talk to the two of you.

Ross Tangedal: 29:42

Yes, this is great. I wasn't sure I'm like, oh, he what he wants to talk to me about swearing. I don't know. What does that mean? Does Shanny think I'm a I'm a potty mouth?

Dona Warren: 29:50

This is actually an intervention, Ross.

Shanny Luft: 29:56

Thank you so much. This was a blast. You've helped me like think about curse words in new ways that I hadn't thought about before. That was exactly the point is I just love your insights and your thoughts and you're bringing your philosophical background on and your English background to these fascinating questions. Curse words. They have so many interesting connections to the things we talked about: culture, race, gender, poetry, art, region, age, and it's been a blast to talk to you all.

Dona Warren: 30:19

It's been wonderful.

Gretel Stock: 30:21

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