Words Do Matter

   1. From the Wall Street Journal:

Book Publishers Are Printing More #@$% Than Ever

   2. A line from a book I am now reading:

"Not drive all this way through a #&!%(symbols mine) awful night. Pardon my English." (spoken by a French Canadian)

   3. An action by a prospective book reader:

Skimming trough a recommended book selection to see if "bad" words are prevalent in the vocabulary of the author, before deciding to buy and read..

   What do all of these have to say about the person reading or acting this way?

   A prude, a language dinosaur, one too sensitive for the reality, out of the mainstream, one lost in another era?

   I mean, there was a time when a movie line, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a d***", was shocking, and I may be stuck back in 1939, after all I was already 3 then.

   I guess that is why I don't make a big effort to watch current cinema offerings. There are also a lot of the current TV programs that I don't even think about watching, and a vast array of new books that I'm not drawn to read.

   Now I've been in enough athletic locker rooms, on enough golf courses and been in enough military barracks to hear all this stuff, but it still does not seem to me to be the way people should talk.

   I remember, way back when I was in college in the '50s, I thought it was cool to try to talk like everyone else in the dorm, but then some inner voice asked "is this the way you want people to remember you?"

   I didn't, and I quit, and those words I used are so common nowadays that they probably pass for polite conversation.

   To many, I guess this is of no consequence, but to me it is still a big thing.

   I don't even like to see a newscaster or a candidate (or a President) using language that seems below where he or she should be. I know that's the way it is today, but it does not raise his or her's esteem in my eyes.

   When we cry out for civil discourse in our legislative halls and marketplaces, does it not help to be civil and circumspect in our conversation? I think so...

   The Psalmist writes:

"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
    be acceptable in your sight,
    O Lord, my rock and my redeemer."

  Amen