PROFANITY: The Most Important Issue at Penn Is?

One evening, I was having a conversation with a fellow student, and for nearly 10 minutes, not one sentence he said was completely free of profanity. I was completely stunned when, after I asked why he had to curse so much, he told me that he didn't think his cursing was a problem. Profanity and cursing have become so prevalent that people will curse without giving any thought to what the word they are using actually means. Swearing has become so commonplace for some that curse words have become filler speech, like "uh" or "like" sometimes are. Words mean things, and the meanings of what we call curse words are downright offensive. They may not bother you, but they do bother some people. Saying them without regard for what they mean and what their implications are will hurt you. When you say something that offends the person with whom you are talking, both parties are hurt. The other person leaves with hurt feelings and less respect for you. One example of profanity almost guaranteed to hurt is the use of curse words with God or Jesus. Putting my own religious beliefs aside, debasing these names strikes painfully at the core of the beliefs that millions of people hold dear. To mock someone's religious devotion in that disgusting fashion is tantamount to using offensive racial or ethnic language, and it is something I hear all too often on campus. If you ever use profanity in this way, please stop. If you hear it used this way, please tell whoever says it that his or her language is completely inappropriate. This kind of language is bound to hurt people -- and when you hurt people, you lose. If the person you hurt is a business associate, you lose business, or you lose your job. If the person you hurt is a friend, you lose that person's friendship. When I lost a friend this way, I learned this lesson the hard way. Our profanity is also an indicator of another disturbing trend. Often, we curse out of anger. The stress we all experience can generate lots of anger, so a certain amount of cursing is to be expected. We cannot, however, allow swearing to be a reflex reaction to anger. We all get angry, but we have to learn how to handle our anger. Simply swearing without a second though demonstrates no such control. We all learn at about age four that temper tantrums are unacceptable. They do not help us get what we want, and we only end up in more trouble. Cursing is nothing more that an adult temper tantrum. If we do not learn now how to control our anger, we might never learn. It pains me to think of the damage that my extremely bright and talented fellow students could do to themselves -- and to others -- if they cannot control their own anger. To solve the problem of profanity in the Penn community, the administration can do nothing, and I do not expect them to act. We have to solve this problem the old-fashioned way: all by ourselves. Cursing is a terrible habit with only hurtful potential. Mark King is a freshman English major from Narberth, Pa. What do you think the most important issue at Penn is? Send submissions of 500 words or less to issue@dp.upenn.edu.

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