Stream of Consciousness Saturday – Dirty Words

It was the time for pseudo-profanity. Remember? The teachers really couldn’t tag you. You didn’t say the F word. You just allided part of it and said Frick this, or fork it all. They, glared at you.
Then, one day, your sister discarded a book from her college nursing program. It was a slender book of instructional articles on linguistics. In it, there was the most amazing article on dirty English words, their origin, meaning, and construction. There was even a formula for creating nasty-sounding words that sounded filthy but meant nothing. It was all an exercise in how language was structured and how we assigned meaning to phonetic groupings, except when placed in the hands of a sixteen-year-old.

Soon, I was the king of profanity. Louis Carreras, report to the principal; yes, sir! Then, I’d take a list of my fake profanities and let the principal examine them. She never found any real “swear words.” But I noticed she kept every list. I always suspected that she used them to round out her limited vocabulary. Which generally seemed to be restricted to words like “unacceptable!!!”

While they never pegged me for the profanities, I was on their “list.” Eventually, I was expelled. I always felt they should have applauded my experimental spirit, interest in linguistic structure, and the puckish humor I exuded.
But no, much of what we call education is indoctrination.