Cutting Through The Cussing
Thursday, March 05, 2009 Posted In Adam Lambert , American Idol , armpit , cussing , New Zealand , swear word , Vogon Edit This 11 Comments »I admit, this post is entirely inspired by the beginning of DeNae's latest post of genius and hilarity. She is one of my favourite bloggerers and a fellow-hitchhiker and I hope that this sucking up brings me some forgiveness for hitching my post to her post...
I am, in essence, continuing my comment to her - on here. And I feel I can do this because she was obviously inspired by my post "Sanity Saver" in which I talk about eliciting good behaviour from the savage beasts (otherwise known as children) using music. Or, as DeNae puts it... "neutralizing your offspring". Clearly, DeNae used my post as her inspiration.
On the subject of "cussing", and I hesitate to use the word because to me, saying "cuss" is akin to actually cussing, I'd like to offer the opinion that a swear word is in the ear of the beholder. Where I come from, "dam-" is as mild as saying, "darn" and "he--" barely registers a two on the EEEK Scale. (Ten being the dreaded F.)
Luckily, before I set foot on these fair shores, MM warned me that the mess coming out of my mouth was likely to give his mother a stroke so I edited my speech most carefully for her sake. Not so my friend Moana who flew over here with me. We forgot to tell her.
"Da--, I love this place! Hello Mrs MM's mother! How the he-- are ya?"
But, should you ever find yourself in New Zealand, there are some things to take note of...
You will probably never come across anyone blessed with the name "Randy" in New Zealand because randy means... "A man who is very fond of the ladies in the very intimate sense of the very frequent frequency." A person of this notoriety would be referred to as a "Randy Bugger". I am, in essence, continuing my comment to her - on here. And I feel I can do this because she was obviously inspired by my post "Sanity Saver" in which I talk about eliciting good behaviour from the savage beasts (otherwise known as children) using music. Or, as DeNae puts it... "neutralizing your offspring". Clearly, DeNae used my post as her inspiration.
On the subject of "cussing", and I hesitate to use the word because to me, saying "cuss" is akin to actually cussing, I'd like to offer the opinion that a swear word is in the ear of the beholder. Where I come from, "dam-" is as mild as saying, "darn" and "he--" barely registers a two on the EEEK Scale. (Ten being the dreaded F.)
Luckily, before I set foot on these fair shores, MM warned me that the mess coming out of my mouth was likely to give his mother a stroke so I edited my speech most carefully for her sake. Not so my friend Moana who flew over here with me. We forgot to tell her.
"Da--, I love this place! Hello Mrs MM's mother! How the he-- are ya?"
But, should you ever find yourself in New Zealand, there are some things to take note of...
Nor should you ever use the word "root" as it literally means "to have s@x". Just to illustrate the importance of this point: A female visitor from the USA said... My first time in New Zealand I made the unfortunate mistake of listing off my hobbies to a family that had me over for tea.... among my hobbies? "I like to root for the football team!" One of the boys said, "What, the WHOLE team??"
Not to mention that a few nights ago on American Idol, Adam Lambert gave the NZ equivalent of the "middle finger" gesture (only much worse) while he was trotting down the steps with the other privileged eleven. It might have been the peace sign, only the knuckles were facing OUT. In New Zealand this gesture would have had him decapitated or castrated... whichever end was closest.
I do believe that one should tread carefully when accusing others of using foul language because in their country they could quite literally be inviting you to dinner and not in fact, telling you that you are the slime that lives off the grime that inhabits a Vogon's left armpit.
(Vogon with aforementioned 'covered' armpits, for which we are grateful.)
