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Saturday 6 July 2013

Bottom is the The New Black

As swear words become more and more part of the language, and have lost their power to shock, it is difficult sometimes to find the right expression when you really need to vent.

My mother announced to my, then, 5 and 6 year old girls, that "Bugger" wasn't a swear word, with a twinkle in her eye.  Much to my humiliation and her amusement, they proudly told their teacher this at school and the poor teacher was in the impossible position of being unable to argue with Granny.

Mind you, this school was very tolerant.  When Pirate, the Jack Russell arrived, HWISO nicknamed him (in a very puerile way, I know, but it made us both snigger!), "Little Todger", as he was our fifth dog and the only non-Labrador.

You've guessed it.  The girls went to school, proudly brandishing their picture of their new puppy.  "His real name is Pirate but Daddy calls him Todger."

Having had to tell the family the bad news, the response has been pretty unilateral from my side.  Both my brothers greeted the news with 

"Poo.  Bottom.  Wee."

My father added to this obviously ingrained family reaction, by adding a "Bum" at the end.

So here sits a child of the Punk Generation, with two brothers of the Hippy era and a father old enough to remember dinosaurs, who fought in Korea.  We REALLY know how to swear - in Tim's case in 4 different languages.  Somehow reverting to Child Swearing is infinitely more cathartic.

1 comment:

  1. sorry that my immediate reaction was so disappointing. I was obviously not brung up as well as wot you were. Now I will have to go and wash my mouth out with soap because my mother will be horrified that I used a "common" swear word rather than the ones that Charlotte's family use, and then again even more so because I used the word "common" which is rather non-U

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