A Little Bit of Emo

I've always seen myself as the person my friends come to with their problems; that I was the support they all needed and I took pride in that. Unfortunately its the opposite. A friend of mine has betrayed me twice now. Even after I told her how I felt after the first time, she did it again. I saw her today at a concert for the first time in about a month. We didn't talk. We just stood on opposite sides of the group and avoided looking at each other. She used to call me the best guy friend she had on campus. What a sham. What a fake. I haven't felt this ill toward someone in a long ass time. Anyway, the point is I actually counted on her for support. I wanted to be around her when I was sad. I didn't know where else to look. My best friend had a girlfriend and I didn't want to get in the way.

In her defense, I must admit that the betrayal I speak of is rather selfish. She called me one of her best friends, but she never set aside time for me. She's just like every other girl I thought I was close to. If I didn't make plans with her months in advance then there was just no time for me. Even if I did make plans or ask for a favor, she'd forget and move on. No apologies. Nothing. Just silence as she waited for me to make contact again so she could repeat the process.

As I move further into my college life, it feels as if everyone is doing their own thing now. I haven't made many new friends, just kept the old. But the old keep moving further away and have no time for me. My self-image was that of being strong for everyone around me. I don't think I could have been more wrong. I am not strong for my friends, I am strong because of them. Everyday I feel weaker.

The last time I saw that female friend before the concert was after visiting my mother in the hospital. It wasn't serious, but a trip to the hospital never ends subtly. Its only the spark to a chain of problems arising. I invited the female to come with me to my sister's to play Rock Band. It was fun, but the entire time my sister kept insulting me and saying things to hurt me, jokingly I'm sure. Still, I'm obviously not as strong as I thought. She commented on a photo of us in which we were having a good time and getting along saying that it was unusual for us to get along well. She has no idea how much I love her. My mother is now talking about divorcing my father. I need my sister to confide in.

When we were younger I always thought my sister was weak. She was picked on in school and at one point in time checked herself into the hospital for psychiatric purposes. But now, she's so far ahead of me. It's easy to see how much stronger she is. My mother can even see it. She told my sister all about the fights with my father and thinking about divorce. I was left in the dark until my sister told me. I asked my mom why she didn't tell me and she claimed it was because I have a lot to deal with and she didn't want to bother me. Yet she told my sister who, on top of college, has a job with nearly 30 hours a week. I think the real reason is because if she talked to me about it I would try to defend my father. I hate the idea of divorce, especially within my own family. To a certain point, I will try my hardest to keep my family together. My sister isn't a big fan of my father so she has no problem promoting the divorce.

Everyone's moving toward change, but I'm in freeze frame. A little bit of emo? Looks like I over did it a bit.

Hostility in the Bedroom

Last year I was approached by Nick, Chris, and Jordan, three of my high school friends, and asked whether I wanted to live with them on campus for our first year of college. Before this I had been told to never room with friends and that random roommates were easier to live with. That just seemed a little too far-fetched for me though. How could I get along with a stranger better than my own friends? So I accepted their offer and have moved in with them to our campus apartment. It took a while, but eventually hostilities began to arise. Our particular problem has been a battle between sanitary and sanity. For instance, we have a dishwasher, but Nick is the only one who loads it and unloads it. That doesn't mean he likes doing it; instead it's more like he cannot stand the sink towering with dirty dishes and everyone leaving their cups throughout the apartment. The worst part is that Jordan takes it upon himself to be as messy as possible until Nick caves in and starts cleaning. At least I take out the trash; Jordan and Chris do not do anything productive as far as sanitizing of the apartment goes. I know for a fact that we aren't the only room mates with hostility issues because my best friend Keegan is already begging me to live with him next year so he can get away from his current roommate. The problem with this situation is that we have all been friends for at least four years now and none of us want our friendship to end. Not only can roommate hostilities be harmful to those involved, it can also become a problem for the resident staff (Lovejoy et al. 594). Roommate disputes between people acquainted with each other before college need to be resolved on a personal basis to keep stability between not only the acquaintances but the resident staff assigned to them as well.

At the University of Cincinnati, which we currently attend, the resident staff have the title Resident Assistants, or R.A.'s. There is at least one R.A. on each floor of their dormitories in order to resolve problems on the various floors. One solution to roommate problems is by contacting the floor R.A. and getting them to change room assignments. For instance, if one roommate strikes a serious nerve within the other, the other may think it wise to resort to violence, and, unfortunately, there are a number of reasons that violence occurs between roommates. There are more students on medication entering college now than ever before and most students have not had to share a room with anyone prior to college (Pulskamp). Thus, sharing a room can lead to confusion and frustration between even the best of friends, and once these feelings escalate to violence, there is little chance of working out the situation verbally. In this case reporting the problem to an R.A. is the safest option in dealing with the situation.

If there is still a chance of settling a roommate dispute personally, simply relying on an R.A.'s assistance creates problems for the R.A. and, though they are there to help solve problems, does not help an individual's problem solving skills. In future careers, chances are that former students will no longer have an R.A. to hold their hand and solve all their problems for them. Hopefully for most students, college is a time of preparation for the future. Suppose I graduate and become a journalist and get a job at a local newspaper. Later, I have a disagreement with my editor because I think they are too nit-picky about my writing. We end up arguing, and by the time the article is due, we have nothing to present to the paper. Chances are we would get fired for messing around arguing instead of doing our jobs. No one at the head of the paper would waste time giving me a new editor because they already know I cannot work well with others, much like R.A.'s would get fed up with constantly switching room assignments. If one is truly at college to better their future, relying on others to solve problems will not benefit their future careers and is therefore the wrong way to go.

The first correct step in resolving a conflict between roommates is for both to find out what the other has an issue with. The resolution needs to suit all roommates as fairly and equally as possible, otherwise conflicts will continue to arise. As Education Portal, a website devoted to giving tips to college students, says, “Living together involves blending two lives and two lifestyles.” Just in case one room mate is a dirty double crosser, everyone should write down the agreements they come to with each other as a means of proof. It's sad, but no room mate is one-hundred percent trustworthy, and one should never believe them when told otherwise. An important thing to note is that when discussing conditions between roommates, one should never yell. Roommates are very skittish creatures and may lose focus on the topic at hand if yelled at. Every roommate needs to have a say in finalized conditions, and it's all right if a compromise needs to be made. Once a plan is made that everyone can agree on, it can be a good idea for all the roommates to reassure each other that they are indeed serious about the plan and do not believe it to be a fun method of passing time. Then, when everyone follows the plan, a healthy relationship between roommates can develop and each one of them can feel more proud knowing that they are one step further away from their mother's nest.

College is a hard time for any student. After a long senior year in high school of unbearable placement tests and innumerable applications for colleges and scholarships, students are forced to get ready for a career they will be pursuing all their lives. If a student is lucky enough to go to a college with friends then they already have a bit of support to push them further down their career path. I often converse with my roommates over assignments I have trouble with and they confide in me if they have the same situation. The support and friendship these roommates give shouldn't be wasted on a dispute over living conditions if they can be worked out. It is up to each roommate to communicate with the others in order to keep the room a safe, positive habitat for living, studying, and, of course, partying.

Works Cited

Lovejoy, M. Christine, David V. Perkins, and John E. Collins. “Predicting Fall Semester Breakups in College Roommates: A Replication Using the Social Satisfaction Questionnaire.” Journal of College Student Development 36 (1995): 594 – 602.

Pulskamp, Andrew J. “Tales from the Crypt: Roommates from Hell.” U Magazine. Winter 2007 <http://www.colleges.com/Umagazine/articles.tafcategory=campusclips&article=

badroomates>.

“Tips for Living with a College Roommate.” Education Portal. 15 August 2007 <http://education

-portal.com/articles/Tips_for_Living_with_a_College_Roommate.html>.

Swearing

Words have power, no matter how you look at it. There are those people who stand up straight and take insults left and right claiming “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me!” Well throw a few “cunt”s and “fuck”s at the right topic and the victim is sure to feel the power a tongue possesses . The person saying the words will feel their power too as a sly smirk comes to the swearer's face at the sight of the victim quivering in anger and hate at the words they utter, giving them a sense of control over the victim's emotions. But what if these feelings were to vanish? Most against the act of cursing would think this to be the ideal setting. Little do these people realize that in order to remove these feelings from society, the power of the words must be exhausted by over-use. Instead, we should try to limit the amount of times we curse.

Try not to take this the wrong way; I am not saying we should attempt to stop cursing all together, but rather with hold our slander until we have no other way of expressing ourselves peacefully without cursing. Nowadays it seems like “fuck” is used in almost every informal conversation had, yet there is not a pause in conversation due to the use of the slander even from the person insulted. Instead the conversation carries on as if the word were never said. We need to retain the power the words hold or we will not have any verbal impact left for our audiences.

Jon Hughes, Director of Journalism and a professor of English and journalism at the University of Cincinnati agrees that the power of curse words must be conserved. He says that beyond the impact of curse words, there is no other verbal shock. Cursing is the only way we have to verbally effect our audience.

A main reason that words hold so much power is because people give it to them. Nothing is labeled good or evil until we humans name them so. This holds true for curse words. They are believed to be evil because groups of humans with vast influence claim them to be evil. There is logic to calling curse words evil, after all they hurt people's feelings. However, these words are part of our past. Cursing is a universal language; it creates the same effect no matter where in the world it is used. Some people are beginning to embrace swearing and allow it to enter common American culture. Swearing is common place among younger friends and men who work tough jobs together. It is a source of bonding. At the Edinburgh Castle Pub in San Fransisco, manager Allen Black holds a contest for the most inventive swear words (War with Words). Yet influential people wage such a war on the words that they gain more power whenever the general public finds them less accepting to use, and the less accepted something is, the more noticeable and attention attracting it is.

One such group of influential people are religious ones. Many religions accuse swearing of being a root of evil. Some believe that curse words are an attack on their god and will ultimately lead the user to eternal damnation in hell, which sounds harsh for simply speaking words. In the Christian Bible, James, an apostle of Jesus Christ, writes, “And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell”(The Holy Bible, 1238). In other words, the tongue is able to defile the entire body and make it impure.

According to Professor Hughes, our first responsibility in a conversation should be communication. We need to find a common ground that is not offensive on the surface, but still gives an opportunity to express our ideas. Curse words should only be used if there is no other way of expressing our idea. There are three areas we as communicators need to think about before expressing ideas. The first is to think about who our audience is. Second, how can we best express our ideas to the audience? Lastly, what words can we use to make the audience seriously listen to our idea?

The main problem with American culture today is that it lacks the ability to communicate in a reasonable way. Curse words are used daily in our vocabulary nowadays. For instance, rap music is splattered with numerous curse words in almost every verse. There was a time in American culture where curse words had a very large impact on society. Professor Hughes recalled in the sixties during the anti-war protests that “fuck” was uncommonly used, but had a powerful effect. During a protest song called “I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die” by Country Joe and the Fish, the band began by spelling out “fuck” in a cheer leader style with it's audience to get them motivated.

Professor Hughes also believes that just as each generation has it's own music, they also have their own language, and each generation defines itself through that language. However, it seems to me that our generation is only stealing the language of the last generation and amplifying it. This hardly defines our generation as unique, but rather just as a copy cat. If we are to leave our mark upon society, we need to find our own language and own identity.

Many parents believe that a child who swears is on the path to a life of bad manners and violence. The broken window theory by criminologist James Q. Wilson supports this thinking. The theory states that if one window in a house is broke in a community, an atmosphere of general recklessness will come about and cause the rest of the windows to become broken (Swearing Off Anger). What they do not know is that throughout history, violence and swearing seem to inversely fluctuate. At times when major violent crimes such as robbery and murder were on the rise, minor crimes such as swearing were on the way down. For instance, during prohibition swearing decreased by over fifty percent during the times of organized crime (Alcohol Prohibition Was a Failure). Another aspect parents may not realize is that they themselves might be to blame for their own children's swearing. James O'Connor, author of the book Cuss Control: How to Curb Your Cursing, stated that parents who came of age in the sixties and seventies “decided to do what we wanted and say what we wanted. So today our children are swearing more and swearing younger” - evidence that points to our generation merely stealing our “identity” from predecessors.

The United States government has had its fair share of attacks on swearing. In colonial times, citizens could earn a night in the county jail by swearing in public. In Standish, Michigan, a law existed for over a century that gave a one-hundred dollar fine to anyone who swore in front of women and children. This law was thrown out for violating the First Amendment right of freedom of speech when Timothy Bloomer was accused of the crime and took his case to the Michigan Court of Appeals in 2002 (Associated Press). In the United Kingdom, police can require citizens to pay on the spot fees for public swearing, yet many of the officers are encouraged not to since it keeps homeless people and young people from “living their lives,” as in, swearing is a habit of theirs (Government Makes Swearing Illegal). Timothy Jay, a “dirty-word expert” at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts believes that the United States Constitution defends speech in the case of libel, slander, obscenity, fighting words, and words that provoke danger (Wajnryb, 46). Humanist Ashley Montague states that:

“The whole history of swearing bears unequivocal testimony to the fact that legislation and punishments against swearing have only had the effect of driving it under the cloaca of those more noisome regions, where it has flourished and luxuriated with the ruddiness of the poppy's petals and the blackness of the poppy's heart.”

Meaning that all legislation is not able to stop the growing ambitions of people to express themselves through swearing (Wajnryb, 57).

Yet despite all this opposition, people are still swearing more. Why is that? There has to be a better reason for swearing than because people are told not to, and there are. For one, swearing is funny. We laugh almost by instinct. Comedians such as Dane Cook and George Carlin use curse words as adjectives to liven up their topics and make them all the more attention grabbing and funny. However, curse words cannot continue to cast a humorous spell when every comic adopts them as a way of presenting their jokes.

The power of curse words is usually interpreted as a bad thing, but there are so many benefits to cursing as well. Curse words can be used to lessen tension between a newly acquainted group. Formal conversations tend to be boring as the members of the group take their time in an uneventful conversation getting a feel for each person they are interacting with. Once curse words are introduced to the conversation, the members feel more freely about their vocabulary and everyone can lighten up without the fear of insulting another member of the group, and when everyone is more comfortable, they can get to know each other better.

Possibly the greatest thing about curse words is that they relieve stress. Swearing can be like crying in a sense that we are “flooding out” emotions. Anger can be relieved by releasing the built up stress in the form of strong words rather than strong punches and kicks and possibly head butts. Timothy Jay says, "Swearing is basically a way to relieve anger and frustration in a nonphysical way.” (Does Swearing Corrode Society?). Stress is not healthy and as humans we need to get rid of it somehow. Why not swear it away? Sure there are other options, but not everyone has time to do yoga to alleviate the stress caused by assholes who do not respect the order of daily processes like driving. The best option is to let the person disrupting the order know how they feel by yelling a “Fuck you douche bag!” at him. They'll feel much better.

Swearing can be revenge. It's how we get back at everything that goes wrong. If someone does not swear at the asshole cutting them off on the road, it will bother them for the rest of the day. However, as long as they express how they feel, even if it is to themselves, they can move freely throughout the day like the incident never occurred.

Even though we are told by laws and scriptures that swearing is bad, the only ones who can truly make us feel sorry for swearing are other people. If someone curses in front of a group of people offended by their words, most would apologize and try their best to keep the rest of their conversation clean. If someone is born in an environment where swearing is common and no one tells them it's wrong, they are more likely to not care what their audience thinks about their vocabulary. If everyone against swearing made it a priority to tell a swearer off every time they heard a curse word uttered, then perhaps the speaker would think twice before attempting to use cursing in their communication. However, with the amount of people who swear increasing, it would be far too tiresome and tedious for anti-swearers to tell each individual off. It is up to each of us individually to limit exertion of their power.

As the rate of swearing rises, the few curse words swearers have to work with tend to lose power. Kristy Bears, a doctoral candidate in linguistics at the University of Florida, says that, “it is not possible to invent new swear words, so we take what we have and use them in new contexts... If we can't have more swear words, we might as well use them in more places” (University of Florida). However, Melanie Philips believes making new curse words is entirely possible. She describes that as old words lose meaning, new ones will come about:

”We live... in an age defined by the smashing of taboos. It's all a part of the assault on the bourgeois codes of behavior, on the suburban, the respectable. But as taboos get smashed, new ones...emerge... so the frontiers of shockability gets pushed ever outwards... Ladishness is the new black.” (Wajnryb, 13)

The problem is that when a new word is made, it has no effect if the general public does not know what it means. In order to create the effect, the word's meaning must be carried by word of mouth mostly throughout the country or world. Most curse words created within groups tend to stay in groups. For someone else to learn the meaning, the group must accept them, and by using the word, they affiliate themselves with the group. The word is no longer special to the group if they allow too many people to join and the word becomes common place. After enough people use it, the word would no longer be traceable back to the group that made it.

Although the thought-to-be major influence of swearing is from television, the only way to stop it is to make every show kid-friendly. This of course would make television far less interesting to the adults who are looking for some entertainment in between sending the kids to bed and going to bed themselves. Adults do not just buy cable for the kids, they like to spoil themselves as well. Of course, anything that is not child friendly will be met with opposition. The Parent Television Council (PTC) reported that offensive language between 8-9 pm, or the “family hour” as they call it, has increased. Melissa Caldwell, director of research for the PTC, stated, “Foul language is the language of aggression. It can lead to violent acts, and it impoverishes the English Language.” (Strand, 27) Apparently no one cares what Melissa thinks since adult style sitcoms continue to dominate even the non-cable channels such as NBC and CBS even though the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has jurisdiction over them and not cable channels.

Swearing has a very influential effect on emotions. The power the carry allows swear words to live on in people during the final stages of dimensia and Alzheimer's disease, when the rest of their vocabulary is gone. Tourette's syndrome is a disease in which sufferers may involuntarily yell out curse words. The fact that curse words are screamed instead of any other words in the world expresses the stress and emotion that sufferers go through. If powerful words are no longer available, their vocabulary would shrink into nothing.

After paying more attention to the vocabulary people I have contact with use, I noticed that no one asked me to stop swearing. Even my mother who gripes constantly about my father's swearing behind his back did not say a word about the words I used. Though she is not a fan of swearing, I noticed that she swears often herself, not near as much as anyone else in the family, but enough for some to consider hypocritical. My friends curse more than any group I know, mostly because we find it funny. However even they watch their language around their friend's relatives. This supports that swearing does not make a “nice” first impression, but at the same time it keeps the common swearer from being themselves. No one can be liked for who they are if they have to hide themselves by holding their breath. Fathers, I noticed, are much more open to swearing when around a group of young adults, probably thinking that they will earn “cool points.” And apparently it works, everyone tells me my father is cool after they hear him swear about everything that's going on. Even when the parents do swear, children are still reluctant to do so out of respect, usually just giggling at everything the parents say without a word more.

Swearing is an OK thing, but it should not be over used. If everyone swears, the power of the words will go away. The satisfactory feeling they give will not even be left. Swearing should not be introduced to children too early in life because they are not responsible enough to handle the power words can have on other people. Swearing relieves stress and helps calm angered bodies. It helps us cope with everyday life without putting a bullet through our heads. It helps us express ourselves via vocabulary better than any other modifiers can. It grips us with emotion that we hold on to till our graves. There is so much feeling and passion behind swearing that it is hard to imagine the world without it. So let us refrain from cursing in every sentence and let the power of curse words remain earthbound.

Works Cited

Alcohol Prohibition was a Failure. 19 July 1991. CATO Institute. 5 April 2007.

Bad Words May Not be so Bad Says University of Florida Researcher. 17 Sept. 1996. University of Florida. 22 Mar 2007 <http://www.napa.ufl.edu/>.

Cussing Canoeist's Conviction Throw Out, Along With 105-year-old Law. 2 April 2002. Associated Press. 13 Mar 2008 < http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx? Id=4064 >.

Government Makes Swearing Illegal. 1 April 2006. OMB News. 4 April 2007. <http://www.owen.org/spoof/swearing/>.

Hughes, Jon. Personal Interview. 28 Feb 2008.

The Holy Bible. Philadelphia: The National Bible Press, 1943.

My Baby Swears. 24 April 2000. Time Magazine 19 April 2007. <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,917,996703,00.html>.

Strand, Eric. “Does Swearing Corrode Society?” Psychology Today. April 2004: 27.

Swearing Off Anger. 29 August 1998. The Tech. 29 March 2007. <http://www-tech.mit.edu/>.

Wajnryb, Ruth. Expletive Deleted. New York, NY, Free Press 2005.

War with Words. 27 Feb 2006. The Golden Gate. 19 April 2007 .