Too much bloody swearing.

I have a potty mouth. Yes, I’ve been a swearer for most of my adult
life and it’s not my best quality. It’s terrible, in fact. The good
news though, is that this bad habit seems to make me a trendsetter.

Because it appears swearing has become the new punctuation. Just ask
Lara Bingle and Gordon Ramsay. Heck, even Rove drops the F-bomb when he
does his stand-ups.

But wait. Let’s pause a moment for a restorative sip of Sunday morning
coffee and some important clarification because not all types of
swearing are equal. For example, I do not swear AT people. Ever*
That’s simply abusive and revolting. But I do swear ABOUT things, most
notably, when I’m frustrated or have injured myself.

Unfortunately, this means I swear rather a lot because I’m very easily
frustrated (hello technology!). And I bang into things with alarming
regularity.

So I frequently use the f-word, the s-word and on special occasions,
I’ve even been known to drop the c-bomb, much to the horror of my
mother but not for the reason you’d think.

You see, my mother is a feminist who believes one should never use a
word for a part of the female anatomy as a term of abuse. In principle,
I agree. In practice though, sometimes no other word will do, maybe
because it’s the only swear word left that hasn’t been so over-used as
to become background noise.

And look, alright, to be honest, I don’t just swear during moments of
pain and frustration. I also sprinkle the odd swear word through my
everyday conversation. As a descriptive adjective. And, you know, for
emphasis.

I thought all this would change once I had children. In many ways it has. Now, I consciously make a supreme effort to censor myself in front of my kids and I am mostly successful. Except when my laptop misbehaves or I can’t make the 11 remote controls on my coffee table TURN ON THE BLOODY STUPID TV. Sorry.

Which makes it even more amusing that my reaction to the recent controversy about swearing on TV was: “Too right! There’s far too much swearing on television!”.

It’s not the first time I’ve found myself wearing a big fat Hypocrisy Hat on the subject of swearing. When Lara Bingle’s “Where the bloody hell are you?” campaign for Australian Tourism came out, I was a bit torn. Even with my own penchant for words far ruder than ‘bloody’, I must admit I found it jarring to hear people say it on commercial TV during the day and early evening. Even if they were as cute as Lara Bingle.

I also knew it would make life for parents that little bit harder. How do you police “bloody” as a swear word when the kiddies are hearing it in government funded advertisements ? The fact that my own kiddies have been hearing it at home since birth is not the point and best forgotten for the sake of righteousness.

And then along came Gordon Ramsay. “This is appalling!” I cried, when I tuned into the debate over the swearing on his show. The Catholic Church claimed Ramsay used the F-word more than 80 times during one episode and demanded the show be pulled off air. “80 times!” I railed. “How outrageous!”. And then I had to have a lie down because I can’t remember ever agreeing with the Catholic Church about anything. This was an extremely alarming development.

The fact I’d never watched the show was irrelevant. Not being fully informed has never prevented me from having a strong opinion about anything. Why start now?

I heard one TV reviewer on radio talking about Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and when asked about the swearing, she replied “you know, it’s really just like seasoning. You barely notice it after a few minutes because it’s just part of the natural cadence of his speech”. “What rot!” I shouted in my head. Did I miss the memo about swearing going from something rude and inappropriate to cracked pepper?

And then a few weeks ago, I accidentally found myself watching Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. And I Ioved it. That TV reviewer was right. Ramsay’s swearing was indeed like seasoning; the Maldon Sea Salt of his vocabulary. It wasn’t aggressive or inappropriate, it was descriptive and expressive.

At any rate, I was captivated by the way he made-over struggling restaurants and gently, cleverly whipped hopeless chefs and owners into shape. I learnt about food and restaurants and how commercial kitchens work. By the second ad break, I couldn’t hear the swearing anymore. Either my brain was filtering it out or it had become wallpaper. Regardless, I was sold on the show, sold on Ramsay.

Until I watched his other show, Hell’s Kitchen. This is a flashy American elimination show where contestants are voted out and Ramsay’s persona and swearing on this program was altogether different. Aggressive, abusive, gratuitous, horrible, designed to humiliate and distress. I learnt nothing about food or restaurants and the horrible words hurt my ears. I’ll never watch it again but I’ll stick with Kitchen Nightmares and the cracked pepper. Bloody oath.

*Except when I’m driving and someone in another car does something idiotic but they can’t hear me so this doesn’t count. Oh, also, the following things are not considered ‘people’: telecommunications companies, banks and items of technology including phones, computers and remote controls.