Its only words...

People are offended by words. Especially the four-letter variety. There are some words I find offensive and mostly what that does is make me wonder why I find them offensive. They're just words. I'm the one who invests them with the power to offend me.

We have words that are collectively offensive, by which I mean that large numbers of people get down right testy if those words are bandied about. Mostly we (they?) get testy because they've been told those are bad words. Every person reading this has a list of bad words running through their heads right now. You're probably thinking, yup - that word, and that one, and Oh, Yeah, THAT one for sure. But there are also words that regionally offensive. Let me tell you a story...

There were two women who worked with me, both in their early twenties. One was from the north - Detroit. The other was from somewhere in Georgia. Georgia walked around the corner one day and said "hi-ho". She said that all the time, it's the way she said hello. Detroit went after Georgia for calling her a 'ho'. Ho is offensive to a lot of people. Another day, Detroit came in and said 'What you gals doing?' Georgia went nuts, came out swinging because - yup, Detroit called her a 'gal'! Apparently "gal" meant whore in Georgia's little corner of the world. Neither one of these women had actually called the other a whore, but both of them got violent because they invested certain words with heavy meaning. Maybe those particular words hurt because the women sort of believed they were true, I don't know. Neither 'ho' nor 'gal' is a bad word.

I try not to cuss. I fail a lot. Some days my vocabulary is stunningly poor. On good days I might get just as frustrated, but I practice creative cussing. I used to just substitute a similar word -freakin, shazbat. I met a lady who just as offended by freakin as she was by the other f-word. Said the intent was the same. I say that's just taking things too far and maybe its time to get over yourself.

Creative cussing is fun, it makes me laugh. I never quite know what I might say, though I do have stand-bys that get a fair bit of use. Scum sucking pig. Poodleflicker. Chicken-licker. Lemon-licker. Chicken lickin pickle flicker. Flipping french fried fruit loop. Scum sucking, liver licking, son of biscuit. Sometimes that one has 'yellow-bellied' to preface it. One I have used for years is "ackenflieganheimen". Doesn't mean anything, I made it up. Its fun to say and its versatile. If theres a big mess, I use the whole word. If I have a minor frustration - can't get the lid off the new jelly perhaps- then I just use part of it. So it breaks down to "acken", "fliegan", "ackenfliegan" and "ackenflieganheimen". I never use just "heimen". That'd be like shouting "vagina". If anyone noticed, I'd blush, and I hate blushing. Though now that I think about it, shouting "vagina" might be pretty funny. Someone try it in a crowded bar and let me know how it goes.

Every one has their "thingums" and "whatchamajiggits". I have dillies. Climbydillies. Rollydillies. Inkydillies. Sometimes rollydillies are "wheeled aparatuses", depending on my mood. I have clickydiddles too, and beepydiddles. None of these are single items. Climbydillies are anything that let me reach a higher elevation, so a strong box or a ladder both fall in the climbydilly category. Rollydillies let me move stuff without carrying it myself. Inkydillies make marks, though not always with ink. Pencils count, as does chalk. Diddles perform actions. Remote controls are usually clickydiddles. The bingbong alert at the store is a beepydiddle, as is the voicemail alert on your phone, whether it beeps or not. Why? Because there just aren't enough words in the English language! I feel so limited by the quarter million words already in existence, I need to make more.

That's right. A quarter of a million words in the English language, and I am not the only person making new ones up every day. There's probably not a single word in the pile that doesn't offend or annoy someone. Plus, we repurpose them constantly. Cool? Repurposed. Hot? Yup, that one too. If you think about it for, oh - 2 seconds - I am sure you can think of several words that have been hi-jacked for a new meaning. We sarcasticize them too. (Made it up, I needed it.) Fabulous might mean stunningly wonderful or it might mean stunningly awful, depends on context and tone of voice. We abbreviate them. Rad! I have one I abbreviate that gets me confused looks. Here's the scoop (see what I did there?):

I have a friend who says "absofuckinglutely" all the time. Its contagious. Now, this is not something you can say at work in front of customers without repercussions. But its in my head! So, I had to find a way to shorten it to replace the temptation. I say "lute." So when someone says "Are you sure?" I am likely to just say "Lute." I hear "absofuckinglutely" in my head, but I only say "lute."

Anyway, they're all just words. I try to remember that when someone says something that hurts or offends me, it's because of how I take it and I decide if it can hurt me or not.  I find life is easier if I don't take everything personally!