Dirty Words

There's a German in the grass
With a bullet up his ass.
Take it out! Take it out
...if you want to be a scout

I heard that in first grade. The recitation was by a big kid...third or fourth grade. "Repeat after me." He encouraged me to memorize this, an introduction to poetry of salacious content. The timing was good. Germans would soon be our enemies.

Until I quoted the verse about the German with a bullet up his ass I called asses hinies, or behinds. I was in first grade and absorbed things so quickly that I was sent up to second grade early. But that's another matter. My tutor in poetry was pleased that my memorization session went well. He flattered me and I took the story home. "There's a German in the grass..."

My parents were stunned. They weren't happy. My mother took it as a literal offense. "Is that what they teach at Emlen School?"

The Hays Office put a lid on what people could say in movies, and television wasn't in homes when I was in first grade. Today, six year olds who watch cable television are way beyond hearing cute words like "hinie." They get a menu of words that we waited a few more years to hear — and then in select company.

A common naughty saying among little kids was "He pooped his pants." Some kids did that and got a chorus of hoots. "He pooped his pants" seemed to be repeated by every kid from here to the Great Divide and we learned quickly that embarrassments were not secrets and there's little sympathy extended to the unfortunate.

Knowledge has benefits. If our elders showed displeasure at some of our acts we found it wise to avoid the acts, partly to please and partly because these people were bigger than us. When we were little we were copy-cats. How else would we learn. Obviously there were limits to what we copied. Our perception of wisdom was fragile so the distinction between what was right and what was a mistake was dependent upon the influences on our lives. Parents were there to correct us. Their influence would wane as heroes outside the house appeared and their strengths tugged at our desires.

Mommy's little boy found it preferable to be Peck's Bad Boy. When kids fell into collective giggles upon hearing "He pooped his pants," they repeated it. It was naughty to say it and it was slightly heroic. Our perception of wisdom kept us from pooping our pants. Notoriety had limits. Pooping your pants wasn't heroic. Being derided was worse than being beat-up.

Cursing was really puzzling and older people generally used deliberate discretion when they were around kids. Words would slip or they would be said when they were unaware of our presence. However, they could get away with it under any circumstance. But we had to be careful lest the back of a hand would be punishment for our indiscretion. Words like "mature" and "adult" hadn't evolved to today's exotic definitions; "mature themes" and "adult audiences" were just grown-up and older crowds. When we heard bad words we would test them on safe audiences. Cursing at a random subject could be expensive, even among peers, and references like "bastard" or "son-of-a-bitch" might be taken seriously. Even kids knew their heritage and though "umbrage" wasn't in their vocabulary it would be exercised by the offended. If you hinted a lack of quality in lineage you might join the black-eye club or the bloody-nose club.

We heard those words from laborers. They might have heard them from choirboys and boyscouts. Part of the larger joy of singing in the choir and going out to camp was to share the obscene. We had upped-the-ante from saying "he pooped his pants" to greater vulgarity but we retained the same collective giggles.

Other kids, those in highschool, sometimes allowed us to "hang" at the edge of their conversations 'though it was to no advantage to them for us to be in their gang. They would show-off, curse frequently, using words that would spice up the exaggerations of stories and exploits that might or might not have happened. Overall, little kids were to them pains in the ass. Behinds and hinies disappeared from our lists and catalogues of things to say.

A new force that would teach us words unacceptable in the pulpits of the land arrived to reinforce choirboys, the boyscouts, the filthy laborers, uncles at the poker table and older kids showing off their worst. War veterans returned and laced their stories with adjectives that we could never use in school or in our homes. That word that began with the letter F was said more often than pronouns and articles and other peoples names and hello and good-bye. To the user, it was an essential part of speech to mark his passage into what was thought being "hip," or in todays view, "cool." It was an earned word to them because they were in the war. The thrill of saying it might go dull, but habit kept it as an unconscious part of vocabulary and as an exclamation of contempt, of frustration, of anger...and as the adjective of use, for poverty of anything else to say.

Who said the big F in my ear? Was it a choirboy, a boyscout, a laborer? If it was one of my peers it was "cool." One of my uncles said it at the poker table at a family picnic and he caught hell from his peers. The F word was a jolt to us when it fell from the lips of adult relations or girls.