An apology to all sailors

Yeah, you heard me. I think we need to apologize to all the sailors out there. First off, there must be a certain population of maritime workers known as drunken sailors and, apparently, these sailors have some consistently bad habits. One of those habits has to do with their willingness to part with their money. You've heard the term "spend like a drunken sailor" haven't you? She spends money like a drunken sailor... huh? Do inebriated sailors have some unique spending habits? Seems so.

The term probably comes from the fact that when sailors would finally get shore leave (which could often times be quite infrequently) they would take those rare opportunities to indulge in all sorts of activities that involve the separation of their cash from themselves. This could involve everything from excessive souvenir shopping (yeah sure); to overindulgence of food and drink; to the activity that coined the phrase "a girl in every port." But this isn't the "____ like a sailor" I wanted to focus on.

A second phrase is commonly known: "cuss like a sailor." This would imply that sailors have another bad habit not directly attributable to excessive alcohol consumption. It appears that sailors have a colorful vocabulary. I've never heard the term "she cusses like a Coast Guard diver" or "he cusses like an Army infantryman." No..... it seems that those donning the white or denim bell bottoms have cornered the market on swearing.

I guess it has its origination in the early days of sailing. Days, weeks or months cramped together in less-than-optimum quarters probably brought out the worst in these old salts...and add in the stereotypical "boys will be boys" (since nearly all the sailors of the early days were men and boys.) So the language could get....well, salty. I don't think the foul language of sailors was necessarily something that was condoned or encouraged; it just was what it was.

On a more serious note, though. Back in 1972, a well known (now deceased) comedian pushed the envelope of decency by itemizing words that, he said, could never be used on television. It ultimately led to the US Supreme Court ruling on the prohibition of indecent dialog between the hours of 6am and 10pm (when children would be likely listening/watching) over the public airwaves. Of course, that was in the days prior to cable, satellite and internet television and satellite radio.

Coarse, vulgar, indecent and obscene language now pervades all sorts of mediums. Language used in today's music, broadcasting, social media, internet, and day-to-day conversations have devolved to a pretty nasty level. It seems like folks are trying to take it as far as possible in the direction of disgusting.

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh is in a heap of trouble for his calling a female college student a four letter word on his radio broadcast. He's not in trouble for saying the word; he's in trouble because he called this young lady this word multiple times in a crude attempt to make a political/ cultural point. But this is the same word that Dan Akroyd used to call Jane Curtin in the Saturday Night Live comedy routine satirizing the news show "Point/Counterpoint." Akroyd even added that she was ignorant. But that was OK, I guess, because it was comedy.

We can't seem to agree on what is vulgar and what is not. Certain words are "OK" in one instance but not in another. Bill Maher used a vulgar four letter word in describing Sarah Palin a while back but nobody seemed to get too upset about it (except maybe Sarah Palin and her family.) And, it was as vulgar as it gets.

As far as I know, for every vulgar word, there is a non-vulgar alternative that is available. Human body parts have actual grown-up words to describe them...we probably even have them in Latin (or maybe I'm thinking about plant species.) For every human "function" there is a real, mature word available to use (if you actually ever need to refer to it.) But coarse, vulgar speech is becoming more and more the norm and that is a great shame. Children used to say cuss words to make them feel more grown up. Today, I think adults use many of these words to make themselves feel like younger people. Adults trying to become teenagers again. It really is a sad situation. I used to have some folks that I was "friends" with on Facebook but I either de-friended them or blocked them from my news feed because I just got tired of reading all their potty mouth comments.

There was a time in my younger days when my language was pretty foul. It was a very bad habit. And yes, it is a habit. But, you can break a habit if you put your mind to it. Does an inappropriate word ever come out of my mouth on occasion? Of course it does. Maybe worse, I have said some ugly things about people and used hurtful words and made cutting remarks. Have you ever said "he's worthless" or "she's an idiot." To me, that's just as bad as dropping a bomb. You unfortunately know what I'm referring to when I say that.

Let's do 2 things...let's try to clean up our written and spoken language....show some common decency. And, I think we owe all the sailors out there an apology.