DarinLand: Sticks and Stones

by Darin Lowery

The English language is so incredibly rich and vibrant, like music or tapestries or really great pesto. It’s amazing more people aren’t seduced by its charms. English is of course the official language of the United States, which is odd because most people don’t bother to learn much more than ‘Honey, pass me the remote’ and ‘LOL’.

Once considered vulgar, slang is used everywhere and eyes are rarely batted when someone lets loose with a volley of swear words at the supermarket.

Lots of words are just plain mean spirited. We insist on setting people apart who are ‘different’ from us, give them a name and then, kidding ourselves, decide we are better. Better because we don’t talk funny or walk funny, or because ‘they’ have skin color or customs or clothing which are different from our own.

A few words and definitions follow which were used when I was growing up in Chicago about a hundred years ago. They are not nice words- in fact, they’re offensive, and I’m sure you could add a few of your own.

Some innocuous terms from that time- to ‘puppy out’, for example- did not mean taking the dog for a walk- rather, it described a person who was a scaredy-cat, and the term ‘wicked’ meant, in my neighborhood, a person or event too cool or outlandish to describe. It’s not a complete list, but I think it illustrates how words are used and how they can hurt, intentionally or not.

Farmer was a term interchangeable with yokel or simpleton. Because none of the kids who used this derisively ever had to rise at dawn to milk cows or muck out stalls, they thought folks who did so were stupid. Personally, I think farmers are terrific people, and I love that big tractor/denim overalls look.

Greaser meant someone who ran with a fast crowd: these were boys and girls who wore leather jackets and spent an inordinate amount of time dressing their hair- either by slicking it back with goop or, for girls, teasing it to new heights and hiding razor blades in the nest. I lost my respect for ‘greasers’ when one of them bet that Lester White, another pomaded kid, couldn’t kiss a moving locomotive. He won the bet but lost his nose.

Years later I heard it used to describe a Mexican-American guy, which was an outrage because I’m practically Latino myself, in a way. Well, not really, but the Irish love enchiladas and mariachi music.

Dago tee is what I always called a sleeveless undershirt until my then-girlfriend Angelina set me straight. I had never thought about it- I’m almost Italian myself, and my Irish family loves lasagna and opera. Learning to call it a ‘tank top’ was better than saying ‘wife beater’- another objectionable term.

Retard could mean anyone who was displeasing or difficult or slow- the saleslady at the K-Mart or like, your Dad. The folks who really were mentally retarded were ignored and referred to as ‘mentally retarded’ until, I don’t know, 1976, when ‘challenged’ became a word most sensitive people used.

Nigger is a cruel word, used originally by those who bastardized the French negre, the Spanish negro and the Latin niger. These were folks who obviously didn’t worry about correct pronunciation. Anyone who uses this word is a person to be avoided, as they assuredly don’t read Nabokov and most probably mispronounce coq au vin. Ditto faggot, another cute piece of work, which was fagot in Old French and meant a bundle of twigs used as fuel. Know your etymology and you can’t go wrong.

Jagoff is my favorite word, then and now, and it’s not only political correct, it’s fun to bray. It’s said with a long ‘a’, Chicago-style, and is a variation on ‘jack off’- one who furiously masturbates. It’s a silly word, but appropriate to holler out during those special moments when a goofball passes my car on the right, a drunk loser is screaming at his wife, or when someone calls the President of the United States- the most important man in our country- the objectionable word which begins with the letter ‘n’.

If I feel a desperate need to hurl invective, I prefer terms in which the gender/race/occupation is ambiguous. “What a dial-tone!” is novel, as is the aforementioned ‘goofball’ and ‘loser’.

The larger goal, however, is to stop doing it. If we choose to rise above name calling and instead embrace each other- our commonalities and our differences- we could be so totally wicked.

If you look at the old idiom ‘’Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me’, only the first half is correct.

Words can always hurt.