There are two windows that quickly reveal the inner person. One is the face, especially the eyes; the other is the language that comes out of the mouth. I don’t necessarily mean the content of the language (though that, of course, is always revealing), but rather the very language in which the content is conveyed. So, on the one hand, a look at the many faces that make up a society or community will tell you an awful lot about that community, whether it’s happy, fearful, neglected, oppressed etc. And, on the other hand, listening to the language of those people will be equally revealing of their heart. What does the general language of our society sound like these days? What does it betray about our society?
I was fascinated by a newspaper columnist (a woman) actually challenging today’s public language. She described it as vulgar, hostile and selfish. I was fascinated that she was giving vent to her dismay (and it was genuine dismay) in a newspaper column, a place where we have seen an alarming increase in decadence and vulgarity of expression over the last few years (not to mention content!). It is the media in fact that has underlined and taught our generation to speak with incredible coarseness.
I was also fascinated by the fact that the writer was a woman; it was as though she were taking on the forgotten historic feminine cultural role of trying to keep decency in our language. She would probably recoil from such a notion. But the fact is that culturally womenfolk have held the barrier against vulgarity and obscenity in language. I was reminded of the rather outdated expression, “Mind your language, there a lady present!”
I was encouraged even more by her role because I have noted that in the newspaper column writing of the present time the womenfolk seem to go out of their way to outdo their men folk in vulgarity and obscenity. She was a very welcome exception, even if it looked as if occasionally she had to quote some modern examples of vulgarity in order to gain a hearing!
She spoke of our language as having a “cruel and bullying tone”, “an abandonment of taste and restraint”, and “trying to gain attention by always going a little bit further” (a classic newspaper activity!) This tells us where we have got to as people – coarse, hostile, obscene, aggressive, unrestrained etc. Our language is us! The real tragedy is that most would defend such unrestrained verbal abuse in such terms as “I have a perfect right to say what I want in whatever way I want, and I am going to do so”.
The columnist noted, “Not long ago that kind of language would not be printed in a national newspaper. It would have denied (a person) the company of any people except the foolish and the depraved”. Our lips tell us are a society adrift of our moorings, dangerously moving in an ever quickening current of decadency.
Bob
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