Soooo, has everyone calmed down from the latest Biden gaff? I listen to Joe now with my ears perked…waiting for him to put his foot in his mouth. I used to do the same thing with George Bush and Dan Quayle. The media has made too much out of mocking these three and they never let us down.
However on Monday when VP Biden blurted out that the new health care legislation was a BFD, I didn’t blink. I was waiting for a different type of gaff. I even heard it and it didn’t even make me blink. Or maybe I didn’t care. Maybe my own mouth has deteriorated to the point I don’t notice. I have a 4 year old granddaughter who slaps her thighs and roars with laughter, screaming WHAT THE HELL, when those hamsters drive their rat wheels down the street. I guess someone has reinforced negative behavior. And yes, at age 4, saying ‘what the hell’ IS potty mouth.
I have heard all sorts of moaning and groaning over bad Biden being in the East Room of the White House and dropping the F-Bomb. These same people I heard gasping over Biden’s potty mouth defended the other V-P, Cheney, for telling Senator Leahy to go ‘f-bomb himself on the floor of the Senate. I don’t really think one area is more sacred than the other. Either both need their respective mouths washed out with soap (Lifebouy was one of the soaps of choice) or we suck it up and move on, barely noticing.
When the term ‘douche bag’ is used with great regularity on TV on 10 PM shows, there really is no where to go but up. I am of the opinion that people can talk any way they want in their own homes. However, clean it up when they go out in public. That includes in bars, malls, schools, at other drivers on the road, and on TV.
So where have we come as a nation with our profanity? Did Biden just make BFD (and the fact that the acronym needs no explanation in the first place speaks volumes) a household word or perhaps he reflected the norm? Who sets the tone for our language being considered acceptable? ‘Our Mothers’ is not the right answer.
We have seen enough of Joe Biden at the open mic. For a change of pace, here is what brings out the potty tongue in my house these days:
(warning: bad grammar in this song)
WTF! This was BFD! It was a CF of a huge effing magnitude! It was a huge SNAFU and shows that public politeness is FUBAR. Biden’s language makes him to be a BAMF.
The public is starting to say, “BOHICA!” because TANSTAAFL.
(grin)
Well, I guess he wasn’t reading off a telepromter.
Ha ha – I guess I have a moderate pottymouth. Growing up in the 60s and being married to a Vietnam vet, I understood ya cargosquid until the last sentence. Then it was urban dictionary time.
I was twelve before I ever heard the “f word” spoken publically. Southerners had a lot of other creative curse words though.
Biden doesn’t surprise me. He’s a bright man who can be counted on to make a memorable gaffe.
Bless his heart.
No problem up through FUBAR…translater needed afer that. HELP.
@Censored bybvbl
I was 10 before I heard it. Someone had written it in chalk somewhere. I went home and ask my father what it meant. oh major duh. ‘Where did you hear THAT?’ I was dumb enough to tell him. It involved the F-word talk for about an hour.
I feel certain that many people younger than we are have no clue what the F-word talk even means.
Yes, southerners do have lots of creative cuss words. I had never thought of it but you are right. And there are also degrees.
I hope you aren’t going to blame all that potty mouth on poor Mr. Censored! I would put either of us up against him any day of the week. I blame my brothers, son, husband, father….anyone I can. 😉
@cargosquid
Anyone care to clarify those last abbreviations?
M-h, no, I can’t blame Mr. Censored for most of them. I picked up a few from my father and then my friends and I got together to add to the list. I can even surprise Mr. Censored occasionally with a new word I’ve learn. Ain’t the internet grand!
Pinko, we need a humorous poem about Veep Joe’s propensity for verbal gaffes. He would probably get a chuckle out of it….or maybe not. You got anything Vachel Lindsayesque?
Indeed it is, Censored. Same here. Of course, by now everyone knows the one I didn’t know. sigh….
Pinko, hup to it. We are counting on you, girlfriend!
There once was a guy named Joe….
Pinko,
Fu… ed Up Beyond All Relief
Bend Over Here It Comes Again
Bad A .. MotherF……er
There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (courtesy of Robert Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress)
Situation Normal, All Fouled Up….except the word used isn’t usually …fouled.
Bohica, Snafu, and Fubar are used as words. All else is usually the phonetic alphabet.
BAMF is a new one to me. Guess its used as a noun.
CF = Charlie Foxtrot = Cluster F..k
Using the phonetic alphabet is always a safe way to used the abbreviations.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?
It’s a Charlie Foxtrot, get the tow truck.
You know how expensive that is, BOHICA!
Yep. Its FUBAR. But its SNAFU. What can ya do?
(This was a real conversation that I had in Kuwait.)
And SNAFU and FUBAR both were used during WWII according to my mother, who included them in her memoirs. MY mother actually said what they meant too. I was sort of proud of the old girl.
I expect a couple others were of that vintage also. I had never heard Bohica.
Then there are education words: POS, CF (universal it seems) and PITA.
And a big thank you to our translator. 🙂
Now Pinko, where is that poem?
And which kids are over in the corner talking trash? Why its Pinko, Cargo and Moon. Anyone else lurking?
Pinko, Cargo, and Moon — up there in the treehouse, just a cussin’ and gaspin’, and wide-eyed and laughin’ to beat the band, hopin’ Mama doesn’t hear it and cut a switch from the apple tree.
Wolverine, my mother swung a wicked forsythia switch. That was her outdoor weapon of choice. Her inside weapon of choice was either a yardstick or a fly swatter, depending on what was closer. When we complained that there were probably dead fly guts on the swatter she said “oh well…don’t do anything to get hit and it won’t be your problem.”
She always prided herself on the fact that she never read Dr. Spock and that she had raised us like puppies. By the time she discovered Dr. Spocks, she said the deed was done.
The only time I ever got in trouble for cussing…and there should have been many times…..someone told me in 7th grade that SOB meant Some One Blond. I had to come home and try it out on my little brother who was a little bit blonde. My parents heard me and asked me what I thought I was doing. I told them that. They flew up out of their chairs and ushered me off for some dastardly punishment because they thought I had lied. They never did believe me. But I swear to this day that is what the kid told me. I think they were angrier over my stupidity than the words.
Moon, sounds like we must have been raised in the same milieu. The old razor strop was the weapon of choice, as I recall. It was used very rarely, however, because I and my brothers got real smart real quick. Except for that time when one of my brothers picked every last flower out of the garden of the elderly lady who lived down the block. Whoooeee! I tell you!
I can distinctly recall the last time I got a spanking. Pop decided to forego the strop and just use his hand. In the meantime, I had secretly put a piece of plywood into the back of my pants. Pop came down with the initial whack, yelled out in pain, and pulled the board out. I though sure I might be headed for an orphanage. But Pop began to laugh, then told me to get out of there and behave myself in the future. Last time I ever got spanked.
Too funny. I am surprised ou didnt get spanked even harder. I can’t remember any end runs I pulled. I remember the last time I got it. I talked back and dramatically slammed my plate down in the sink and stalked off. I remember running for dear life because the belt had a mind of its own.
I think razor straps were a thing of the past by the time I came along at my house but I heard about them and I always looked when they were around other places, just to see what I had avoided. Thank goodness for safety razors!
My mother used a switch from our mimosa or she used the flyswatter. My father used the belt. He only had to use it a couple times because just the threat of it was enforcement enough. My sister, who recently retired from a couple decades of working CPS, told them one time that she’d be investigating parents if they used any of those enforcement tricks now.
@Censored bybvbl
Mine would be in jail for sure. For that matter, I might be also. I need to get a new Mimosa tree. Some fool cut mine down.
My gosh, such horror stories! Razor strops, switches, and belts! Was the buckle-end used?
The harshest thing my mother did was pull my bangs which hurt, but at the same time, it always made me sneeze, so the effect wasn’t always the one intended.
Censored, let me tell you a story that would leave your CPS sister aghast. Long ago I spent several years teaching in a junior high school (French style education) deep in the backwoods of an African country. Discipline was really, really tough in both the junor high and the nearby primary school. Whenever my students were taking tests or copying lessons, I would stand on the verandah of the school and look across the courtyard toward the primary school. The African teachers in that school always carried long, supple switches. If a primary kid acted up or gave a wrong answer or even just looked like he/she wasn’t paying attention, that switch came down on their heads, so sharply I could hear the whap where I stood.
By the time the kids were in junior high, that sort of corporal punishment was no longer used. However, one day two of the girls in one of the classes got into a real clawing and scratching fight over the affections of a male student. Instead of inflicting punishment himself, the African principal (for both schools) sent a message to the fathers of the girls. Now, these fathers were people of the bush, hard working men who ran cattle out in the grasslands. They were proud but illiterate people who considered any misbehavior on the part of their children as an insult to their own honor and standing. For their kids to be able to go to school was a greatly prized thing. I was at that time unaware of much of this. I came to school one day to find all the students assembled in the courtyard. The two girls in question were standing with their hands braced against a tree. Their fathers came carrying the great cattle whips which they used in their work. They proceeded to whip the backs of those girls something fierce, but so skillfully that the whips never left a mark. I’m standing there watching this, never having in the least expected it. Talk about cultural shock!! But those two girls never misbehaved again all the rest of the time I was there.
They still do that in Singapore, not to school kids, though.
Wolverine, I’ll bet that not only did those girls behave but the other students behaved as well. Culture shock indeed…
One of my sisters had a second grade teacher who liberally used a bolo bouncer paddle on the students who misbehaved. My sister was terrified of school that year and claimed many fake illnesses to avoid having to go.
Punchak, we never experienced the buckle end of the belt – just a couple quick whaps on our legs with the other end.