To return to the top of the page, click on the ^ next to each title.

1 . Cussing, cursing, swearing and naughty words - by Chris Heinrich^

“Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” That saying is taught to children as a defense against teasing, insults, gossip and all the other cruel things people do to one another through language alone. Understood on a strictly physical level, it makes sense. The pain of being called by a disparaging name is nothing compared to that caused by a well-thrown rock, short of, that is, having the word shouted so loud and near that it blows out an eardrum. Why then are teachers and parents, the greatest propagators of this maxim, so often scandalized and even enraged when they hear curses used?

Because it is a weak defense. Words can cut and can go deep. Any number of harsh pejoratives can end a friendly relationship as surely as a punch to the face. The pain of words is not a physical one but an emotional and social pain caused by an understanding of another’s feelings towards oneself. Words have power, there can be little dispute about that, and as Spider-Man has taught us, with great power comes great responsibility. It would take volumes to investigate all the forms of power held by words, thus we turn our attention to this single question, “How should we use those words that have the greatest power to hurt, curses?”

Before this question can begin to be investigated, an understanding of language, that system in which words operate, must be arrived at. Language operates on two levels: the concrete and contextual. The common meanings associated with words and found in dictionaries are the concrete. Take the word ‘bitch,’ for example. In its original sense and that sense from which many of its variant uses originate, it is simply a female dog or related species. All can agree what a bitch is but not necessarily understand it in the same way, especially when applied to humans. This is where the contextual aspect of language comes in. Context is the understanding of words arrived at through personal experience, standing in contrast to that of the concrete which comes through universal experience. Returning to the this example, a woman, a man, a child, and a dog-breeder will understand it in wildly different ways because their experiences in its use are so different. Many will take it as an insult to their sexuality. Some, should they be familiar with Joreen, may even take it as a point of pride. All of these understandings are possible depending upon what the person has read and watched and where they have heard the word before. The contextual existence of language is also dependent upon how and when words are used. One’s tone and body language and the immediate situation can imbue words with greater meaning or imply that something else entirely is meant from what was said, as is the case with sarcasm.

Operating from this understanding of language, two schools of thought on how to treat curses can be immediately recognized. The first gives the greatest weight to the concrete aspect of language and sees in curses only the most terrible words, ones that express the greatest depths of hatred or depravity in every situation, at every time. No matter from whom, to whom, where or when, they see the same definitions and connotations in every use of a curse. A person cannot help but offer the gravest insult when they use a curse, so they must never be used.

This camp is wrong. As written earlier, language and words are colored by one’s experiences. Though the definitions do not change, or at least do so slowly, the use of curses does and is unique to each person. One who often hears curses used may think less of using them in a similar casual manner and inadvertently offend someone who never curses. Curses do not always mean the same things to different people.

At the opposite pole lie those who believe that words exist entirely within context, that they only have meaning to the extent that people grant it to them. Depending upon any number of factors including the speaker, listener, time and place, words change in meaning. A curse is only offensive if both the speaker intends it and the listener understands it as such. Furthermore, for adherents of this school a curse is not limited to George Carlin’s Seven Dirty Words and those most often referred to as ‘4-letter words.’  When content is king, any word can become a curse.

Followers of this philosophy may promote the common use of slurs to strip all elements of offensiveness from them. For them, the common ceases to be offensive, so one ought to use words normally used to insult and hurt as often as possible in order to make them common. Repetition causes one to become desensitized and destroys meaning. One cannot be hurt or offended by what means nothing to them or has no meaning.

I cannot bring myself to accept the tenets of this group either. To bring language and meaning down to the level of pure context is to go too far and to suggest the impossibility for understanding between two people because they are operating entirely on their own unique experiences. Yes, all experiences are different, and our perspectives are thusly varied. However, there are similarities in our experiences and sometimes we share experiences with others. Two people watch the same movie may very well have closely aligned understandings of the word ‘bastard’ if it is used to describe a character. That character’s most prominent, negative traits thus influence the viewers’ understandings of bastard in a similar manner. In its own way, the mass media has given people the opportunity to share experiences through images reproduced on a grand scale. People’s understandings of all curse words and  of when they are appropriate to use are not only colored by their appearances in people’s lives but also in the media they consume, the same movies, television shows, novels and music that many others have watched, read and listened to.

My answer to the earlier questions takes the middle way and recognizes the presence of both aspects of language.

Curses are meant to be ultimate expressions. Hell is the worst conceivable place. To damn someone is to wish their eternal existence there. The connotations of the words do vary but all are meant to reflect the greatest depths of hatred. To overuse them is to dilute their meaning, and what is one left with then, when they are need of such an expression? They are left with words whose potency has been lost through frequent or casual use.

Thus I advocate abstaining from the common use of curses, so when they are needed, there will be no doubt as to their meaning. What does it mean when Ozzy Osbourne curses someone out?  Depending upon the person’s experience with him, completely different things. One who is familiar with his frequent, casual use of curses will not take the least offense, while someone who is not may take affront. In the latter case a misunderstanding occurs. Similarly, if Osbourne curses someone out in earnest but the listener merely understands it as his habit, a misunderstanding occurs again. To prevent these misunderstandings, the use of curses must be minimized so their meanings remain as intact as possible and intentions are never misunderstood.

2 . It was a Dark and Stormy Night: The Roundabout History of a Famous Incipit - by Anna-Sophia Zingarelli^

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

So begins one of the most justifiably obscure novels in the history of the English language. In 1830, when Edward Bulwer-Lytton, the First Earl of Lytton, penned these words at the start of Paul Clifford, doubtless he was under the impression that he was being stylish. Sadly, he was mistaken, as members of the aristocracy often are. Gentle reader, I tried to read Paul Clifford. I, like many before me, failed. I barely made it through the first chapter. If he had come after Dickens instead of having preceded him, one might say that Bulwer-Lytton was engaging in a misguided attempt to be Dickensian. He might have just succeeded, were it not for the tragic circumstance that he lacked both talent and flair. But alas, since he did in fact precede Mr. Dickens, one must conclude that the Earl simply lacked judgment. San Jose State actually holds an annual bad-writing competition in his honor. His sentences run on for line after line. The unhappy reader is prepared for that first ample sentence of Paul Clifford by a dedication that takes up thirty-four words where a simple “To A.F.” might have sufficed.

But never mind; the nobility don’t require talent to get published. Who would dare send a rejection letter to the First Earl of Lytton? Hence more than 25 novels were inflicted upon an innocent public, in addition to volumes of drama and poetry, a history of Athens, and a rendering of the Odes and Epodes of Horace. I humbly suggest he would have done better to keep with translation; his version of the Odes is only marginally more effusive than were the original lines of the good Quintus Horatius Flaccus himself. But in the process of prodigiously producing purple prose, Bulwer-Lytton at least bequeathed us one memorable phrase. “It was a dark and stormy night” has been ingrained into our collective memory by the likes of Charles Schultz (on behalf of Snoopy) and Madeleine L’Engle, who used it to begin A Wrinkle in Time. And who among us has not heard the line from the lips of our own parents, at a loss to begin a bedtime story in a more unique manner? Ignoring the rest of the sentence, one has to admit that the tone is set admirably. On such a dark and stormy night, whatever happens is sure to be mysterious, terrifying, and sensational. The only question left to the reader’s mind is this: Did the butler do it?

3 . Eavesdropping - by Allie McCullough^

As I was walking down my quiet neighborhood street one warm afternoon last August, I heard some voices over the fence of a distant neighbor. I had never met him, but every once in a while he would be on the lawn playing with his golden retriever or tossing a baseball with, I presume, his son. Over the new wooden fence came two men’s voices, and it took me a few seconds to realize that they weren’t speaking English. Their tones sounded like a political debate you’d see on the news, when both speakers agree but are outraged by the topic enough to aggravate their voices. I had to stop for a moment.

Not like any language I have ever heard, what they were speaking was so indistinguishable: throaty, but not coarse like the stereotype of German, flowing but at times, choppy like Chinese. It certainly wasn’t a romance language, because even with a decent background in Spanish, French, Latin and Italian I couldn’t recognize a single word. I hadn’t seen my neighbor up close but I don’t remember him looking Japanese or Korean, and the men couldn’t have been speaking any Asian language. (A Seattleite since birth, I have heard plenty of Chinese, Japanese, Korean dialects to know that this could not have been the case.) I have never been to Africa, but I also didn’t notice any of the little nuances that suggest an African language. I could not bring myself to realize what they could be speaking, or even what continent might speak that combination of sounds I was hearing, but as I drifted into a daydream, staring at the fence, I began to understand their tones—their voices—just perfectly.
I imagined the two men enjoying a drink on plastic chairs sitting on the freshly watered lawn, watching the golden retriever chase the occasional stick thrown in between comments about the weather, their jobs and the news. Watching them with content smiles from the kitchen window would be their wives, chatting in the kitchen about how their children were doing in school, and how much salt to add to the pot of ingredients bubbling on the stove. Every once in a while a burst of laughter erupted from that kitchen window, and I could picture their full smiles and heads thrown back with glee, aprons dusty with flour.

Interrupted suddenly by the whizzing of bicycle spokes, I jumped out of the way just in time to see the children racing down the long hill to their house, bending around the sharp corner. The screech of brakes and young voices indicated that it was probably a close race, and the stampede of little sneakers faded as they came in through the front door. Running into the kitchen with dusty shoes and unwashed hands, they paw the ingredients waiting on the counter. The women shoo them out of the kitchen with stern looks and swinging arms pointing to the sliding door and the complacent men behind it outside, and they laugh at the women because they know they could never be as angry as they sound.

The men’s debate has slowly calmed down, bringing longer pauses between the two speakers. They watch the children chasing the retriever, throwing sticks and pebbles and any toy they could find for the dog to catch. Then, calling out like a songbird to her chicks, a strong but beautiful voice drifts over the fence in the same unrecognizable language. “Dinner’s ready,” she seemed to call, “come wash up!”

The distinct voices of giggling children disappear into the house I couldn’t see from my side of the fence, but I could picture the men picking up their drinks from their lawn chairs, carrying them into the house with a few comments about the superb cooking they were about to enjoy and what a wonderful day it turned out to be.

I have yet to meet my neighbor, but already I know so much about him and his family. They are not unlike mine, or many others; they speak a completely different language, but the language of family is a communication unbreakable by mere words—it is a tone, a sense, and a feeling of something that everyone knows. I may never meet them, or speak to them in their native tongue, but I know that we would be able to understand one another, because understanding is the most distinguishable form of communication there will ever be.

4 . Refusing to Give the Gift - by Adam Waterreus^

 “The quality of our thoughts is bordered on all sides by our facility with language.”
J. Michael Straczynski

I’ve heard it since I can remember. Long distance calls to family, my Oma and Opa speaking to me through my dad. My aunts’ accented English bouncing off my ears, me looking of everything but understanding, and my dad stepping in. Though I may remember these younger conflicts with language, I cannot remember the yearning desire to know the language. My teacher was there. Everyday I saw him—and I wonder, if everyday, had I asked for a lesson in Dutch, would he have eagerly provided it?  And if he wouldn’t, why not? 

That would be the bear of my problem. I know now, after these few years of supposed maturity that the gift of language is close to invaluable. I know that there exists a certain difficulty in my acquisition of a language if I were to now attempt the challenge of learning one. Physiologically, it is said that the best time to introduce a new language is in the years prior to the completion of the lingual centers of the brain. That way, in the future, a child may have the appropriate brain development to take on a new language. I don’t suppose this means that without that early development learning a new language becomes impossible, certainly not. No, just that it becomes much more difficult. Perhaps unnecessarily difficult.

I can only surmise (not being a parent) that, knowing what I know now and experiencing what I have experienced, that the gift of language would be one I would eagerly supply to my child.
So why wouldn’t my father offer me this possibility?  Supposing I could have learned early on I cannot help but blissfully imagine my long-distance calls to my Opa, getting to know him, not through my dad’s assistance or narrative, but solely on my own. But I blame myself. Being a child in America does not present, nor require, the talent of multiple languages. At least not where I’m from. There exists the possibility that this very crux is what prevented my father from pushing me to learn his native language. Is there a cultural stigma that frightens my father, which embarrasses him in to hiding his accent? 

In a previous paper I’ve dallied with the importance of language. For those who have had the pleasure of travel will quickly assent that, if there is anything that separates the traveler from the land he/she explores, it would be most strongly manifest in the local language. Though we may enjoy the sights and bask in an atmosphere so strange yet so familiar, there is always something blocking ones total immersion. That, I believe, is the sharing of a language. An important aspect of a culture is that there exists an assumption of a shared or common language. Having traveled enough to know the alienation one encounters upon attempting to immerse oneself into a culture, and feeling that sense of hopelessness that, without an intermediary, contact becomes shallow.

I believe that my father may have experienced the same thing I had upon traveling to distant countries when he came here to America. As I understand it he didn’t know a speck of English, and had quite the ordeal in O’Hare international airport. I can only imagine the difficulty of encountering such a mono-linguistic culture as we have here (go to Europe and sit back and relax among the sounds of English speakers everywhere). He learned English here, in school, or through his uncle, and has lived here ever since. I know for a fact that his accent, though slight, still brings him embarrassment, and though he’ll call it his speech impediment, it has done nothing to handicap his career. I can’t help but wonder, while I was a growing boy, that he thought to teach me Dutch, but decided not to or just didn’t put the effort in because of the implications of such an accent, or speech impediment, would do to my English. I know of some parents that didn’t teach their children their language because of how it would alter (or confuse) the children’s speaking, and upon considering the perpetual embarrassment they feel when they don’t or can’t pronounce a word correctly decide not to risk their own children’s esteem.

These problems become even more manifest in the world we live in now; post-9/11 America has become, as is argued a more assimilated culture. We are all of us immigrants, as is said, but today our acceptance of a different culture is becoming narrower and narrower. The major political and editorial views being that an immigrant must learn English, and that our tolerance of such un-learning is becoming slimmer and slimmer. Attacks on immigration laws abound in the newspapers. We are entering (or have been living in a time) of perpetual argument on the multicultural issue—whether public education will be multicultural based or if our public schools we offer children classes in English as a second language. Or if we care to offer multi-language public warnings (such as the Seattle-Times did for the Carbon Monoxide scare in November and December). All these issues originate from how we think of language, how we consider the speaking of a different language and how we feel about those who do.

We may forget how important language is in our daily lives. We don’t know someone until we can communicate with them. Personality, humor, tone, and much more is packaged within language. I, though I have not experienced the things my father has, would immediately think that if I came from a different culture and spoke a different language, I would want my children to possess that same gift—in a way, if any, to further and embrace that heritage. For it is strong. Our past, as some believe, shapes us. We can take strength from the knowledge of our grandfather’s achievement, our family descent—whatever thing that, culturally and linguistically, offers us the forbearance to strongly pursue the life direction we long to take. But how, for instance, am I to know of that heritage without first knowing the language?

I have a singular high point in a recent trip to Europe. That is, of an afternoon spent talking, drinking coffee, and eating sweets (if you didn’t know, the Dutch have the best sweets) with my cousin—who I had not seen nor talked to in eight years. A moment of question asking and inquiry into theirs and mine own life, the afternoon came and went, and I learned more from her, and possible her from me, than I ever would—walking the streets with a Lonely Planet map of the area. She spoke English (beautifully I might add) and was willing to talk with me. Strangely enough, this may too have been the encounter my father had, here in America. If he was to become a part of this culture, he would need to speak English, the better he did that the more successful he would be. In that I was raised in America, it may have been that my father was, consciously or unconsciously, aware that my English would better serve me here, and that the fears, insecurities, or embarrassment that he experienced would be best prevented by not teaching me his now second language. Either way, the question may arise, to what culture will we best prepare our children, to what culture will you be best suited for?

5 . Listen - By Adam Membrey^

Listen not with your ears but your eyes. Don’t let the dancing of my fingers fool you into believing my emotions are abstract; they are just as real as the ones you share everyday. My dreams and ideals are not fluffy things at home with the clouds in the sky; they are just as concrete as the earth you pick up in your very hands. Look closely and you’ll be able to see the heartbeat pulsing in each finger tip, begging for a connection to be made, an understanding to be reached. Look closely and you’ll allow the words to dive in through your irises and swim to the very bottom of the meaning of it all.

Abre los ojos.
Escucha.

6 . Saluting the Saviors of a Noble Tradition - by Tony Schick^

I salute the long line of tipplers who have perpetuated such a noble tradition: A phrase from Gonzaga’s legendary own Bing Crosby. Or in case that sentence registered as absolute gibberish, his colleague Frank Sinatra more bluntly states it “I’m fond of drinkers myself.”  I have no intention of passing judgment on the age-old pastime of tippling, but I will express dissatisfaction with the fact that most young people, myself included, would not understand Crosby’s eloquence without a dictionary. A statement like this, seemingly commonplace at the time it was uttered, is now extraordinary and exemplifies the one complaint I have the audacity to voice but not enough to exclude myself from: The variety of our language is dying.

In a recent class period, a professor asked if anyone had procured the text for the course. With books evidently displayed on nearly each student’s desk, the classroom all the while remained silent. Confused and somewhat perturbed, he asked again, “doesn’t anyone have the book yet?” to which dozens of copies of it shot into the air. Students then clarified that no one understood the word procured. While I do not believe that using fancy words make one smarter or even a better writer, I do believe in the importance of their existence. The variety of words in a language is what makes it unique; it is how people differentiate between what they could say and what they really want to say. If the English vocabulary perpetually diminishes, people begin to sound more and more similar; until everyone is using the same words over and over the language becomes bland. Our language is our highest and most accurate form of communication. As our scope of language narrows, the accuracy of our communication blurs along with our diversity. With everyone babbling the same decimated vocabulary in the futile hopes of formulating an original idea, we lose our most valuable form of self expression. Is it too much television and not enough reading?  Is it a popularity emphasis on sports and physical prowess rather than intellectual stimulation?  Is it an increase in the formation and circulation of slang?  Myriad reasons could contribute to such a devastating trend. Perhaps the unintentional message of Bing Crosby and his fellow tipplers can resonate in a culture seemingly so far removed from their own. Whether or not those who advocate the expansion of our society’s vocabulary will emerge victorious, I admire the effort, and I salute those who have perpetuated such a noble tradition.

7 . Sprechstimme: A proto-rap? - by Robbie Cowan^

Ten years ago, one could not sing rap music. Besides a general lack of melodic hooks as are commonly found in today’s popular rap and hip-hop music, rappers themselves took pride in being rhythmic speakers over beats, placing no more than the simplest of inflections upon their rhymes. Any speaking person, even the most tone deaf, could repeat a segment of rap music, and, given the correct words, those listening would find it an acceptable approximation.

With the advent of a new millennium, our popular music changed in a subtle yet drastic way. Listening to popular rap and hip-hop on the radio today, one cannot help but notice the pitched nature of even the rappingest rhymes. When we sing back the popular music on the radio today to our friends, we inevitably repeat it not only word-perfect, but note-conscious as well. Those who attempt to sing a section of a rap song today are open to chastisement, even if they get all the words and rhythms correct, for “singing it wrong.”

This style of singing and speaking at the same time is hardly novel. While popular music did not adopt it until this decade, the classical world has been using it since 1911 or 1912. Famed Viennese composer Arnold Schoenberg employed a technique which we dubbed “sprechstimme,” also called “sprechgesang,” into his Gurrelieder and, more famously, his piece Pierrot Lunaire.

This sprechstimme, meaning speech voice or speech song, is a combination of our natural inflections in speaking along with a more formal notated musical line, often notated by Schoenberg as an ‘x’ within the note stem. The note values and rhythms are observed exactly, but the pitch indication of each note is to be observed only in so much as the speaksinger hits the note and then moves immediately away from it. This becomes neither singing nor speaking when heard, but sounds somewhere closer in between the two as the speaksinger’s voice wanders around more naturally from word to word.

One of Schoenberg’s greatest pupils, Alban Berg, utilized this technique in his operas, most famously in his Wozzeck, as did Kurt Weill in his operas. The most memorable modern use of a sprechstimme style is perhaps that of Fred Schneider of the rock group the B-52’s, who vaguely speaksings his parts over psychedelic beach-rock guitars and ‘80s beats.

Returning to popular music, a few examples demonstrate the point clearly. Take Jay-Z’s hit single “99 Problems.”  While the second half of the memorable refrain’s pitches in “I got 99 problems but the bitch ain’t one” could be a result of simple inflection, the line preceding it is clearly pitched, and anyone singing “if you’re having girl problems I feel bad for you son,” as a monotone would be corrected by anyone with a knowledge of the song.

Snoop Dogg’s classic “Gin and Juice” features a sung refrain, but his rap style is clearly pitched. Even the spokensung interjection “I got my mind on my money and my money on my mind” is pitched so clearly that we might be able to notate it using classical notation. Likewise, 50 Cent’s popular favorite “In Da Club” features the artist hovering though much of his rap around a single note, moving up or down and half-step for emphasis. Anyone attempting to speak his rhymes like a traditional rap, even in perfect rhythm, would find that their rendition was clearly not reminiscent of 50’s.

Examples are endless as popular music itself, and we haven’t even mentioned here the proliferation of rap mixed with other, fundamentally melodic styles as is now the fashion. Regardless, the relation between classical sprechstimme and popular rap is one of many crystal clear examples of popular music taking its lead from classical art.