Foul-mouthed beauties

Except for weekends, I normally take the bus to get me halfway to work (and back). This past Thursday found me sitting in front of a couple of teenage girls, who were immersed in rapid, heated conversation.

When seated so close to each other, it's inevitable that you become an insider to many a household secret, as some seem blissfully unaware that their loud voices disseminate private information to every nook and cranny inside the bus. So it was that - aided by slowly awakened semi-curiosity - I learned a few things about these two total strangers.

The content of their small-talk raised few eyebrows. There was nothing sensational about it. But their language did pique my interest - for entirely different reasons: both because I'm a lover of language, and since I'm also conscience-bound to refrain from using swear words, the constant flow of expletives (four-letter words) from the two teens behind me annoyed me intensely.

No, I wasn't shocked by this abuse of language, as I've I've taught people their age for more than a decade, and I've come to observe that young people nowadays curse and swear across gender lines. But this was like being hit by an avalanche of foul talk. Every sentence was littered with it, in fact, it seemed they were unable to produce a single adjective that wasn't a four-letter word.

But why this annoyance on my part? Why this apparent judgmental attitude?

Language is both a wonderful utility tool - a communicative vehicle, and it has inherent esthetical qualities at that. Those who master it can get their messages across with mind-blowing efficiency and precision, while at the same time crafting or penning their phrases in such ways as to make their audiences recognize this fact: truth can be both informative as well as beautiful.

I pray that sometime these two foul-mouthed beauties will learn to reject their practice of language abuse. They deserve better.