Oh #@*% !!

Yesterday I overheard someone speak the “#@%* word” and it brought back memories of my time spent “in the service of my country”. I use that phrase “in the service of my country” very loosely. I was enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve and stationed at Camp Pendleton, California on active duty. This was in the late 60s and Vietnam was heating up…yet back then they rarely called up the Reserves. The joke about the Reserves was “the unwilling being lead by the unqualified to do the unnecessary” and there seemed to be a lot of truth to that statement. Either Reserves or Regulars the “F word” was spoken fluently. I myself never heard such words as a child. My parents used proper language and expected us to do the same. Therefore, I had little practice in the art of cussing and cursing. Whenever I attempted such speech it just never seemed to flow or come out quite right. But thanks to my military training I managed to blurt out that aforementioned word on occasion with the required emphasis and emotion.

At some point I decided to give up my pursuit of foul language…not necessarily a decision to improve my moral status but more of an academic issue. I was on a quest to express myself better and expand my vocabulary. For it seemed “that word” was a bit over used. It’s not just used as an adjective or noun but used as every known part of speech: verb, pronoun, adverb, conjunction, interjection, and preposition. This makes for some very interesting sentences but not very descriptive or technically accurate when trying to converse above the level of a cave man’s grunting and groaning.

Well, I haven’t made much progress in my pursuit for academic excellence as I still end my sentences with prepositions and let my participles dangle but I have managed to eliminate most of the bad words.

Thank you, Lord, for parents that expected better of me.
Amen