I am what you might call old-fashioned.
OK, I'm a dinosaur.
Maybe it's the guilty conscience of a reformed altar boy.
Maybe I should blame my mother and father.
Maybe it's because I spent eight years under the firm tutelage of the Sisters Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Or maybe I just cling to a time when public writing and speaking was, how should I put this?, a bit more reserved.
Now, every random thought that comes into our head is deemed worthy to share with the public, so long as it fits into 140 characters, or whatever limit Twitter is imposing on us this week.
The truth is, I tend to be a bit formal.
Some people would call it stuffy.
That pertains to just about everything I write. Emails, blog items, Facebook posts - I tend to cling to formal spelling and grammar.
Blame Sister Helen Dolores. She's the won who drilled this stuff into me.
Yes, I am a man of words.
But I come before you today actually to speak out against one particular word.
I would like nothing better than to see it banned.
Unfortunately, I can report just the opposite. Instead of producing cringes - which I assure you it does for me every time I hear it - instead it increasingly creeps into our everyday lexicon.
To me it will always be like fingernails on the chalkboard.
Yes, it is a four-letter word.
Yes, it rhymes with buck.
No, it does not start with the letter f. I am, by the way, a serial abuser of that particular epithet. Yes, I routinely go over to the completely dark milk bottle. And if you do not know what that is a reference to, you clearly were never privileged to what is the greatest text book ever written, the Baltimore Catechism, and in that particular instance, the greatest visual aid ever emblazoned on young minds.
The totally dark milk bottle equals mortal sin. That is opposed to the speckled milk bottle, which is reserved for venial, or more minor offenses.
I've had more than my share of both.
The word that so offends me stars with the letter s, and yes, it rhymes with duck.
I'm not quite sure when this particular term became OK for routine use.
I assure it is not for me.
It apparently is, however, for none other an august body than the U.S. Senate.
I could have sworn (yes, I do more than my share of swearing) I heard that word emitted from the mouth of a U.S. senator in excoriating the policies of Facebook yesterday when CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared before a Senate panel.
I agree with the sentiment.
I disagree vehemently with the use of the word.
Want to know why society is slowly sliding into a coarser, nastier, ugly public persona.
Once the public use of such language no longer produces an outcry, you know we have passed a crucial barrier.
Today, nothing seems out of bounds when it comes to the way we speak to each other.
Not me.
I will cling to my Baltimore Catechism, and my standards.
I am not a prude. I can swear with the best of them. But there is a time and a place. And too often today, those tasked with speaking in public forget that important rule.
I lament our race to the bottom in our public discourse.
Welcome to the lowest common denominator.
And that, my friends, does indeed buck the standards we have held dear for generations.
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