Yet Another Language Rant
What a wonderful movie, Angels in the Outfield (1951). The Danny Glover version (1994) was good, but no match for the Paul Douglas original. This classic baseball film has lots of highlights: Noreen Corcoran as Bridgett; some wonderful cameos, particularly Ty Cobb; terrific performances by the minor players; and truly superior writing.
The latter stood out because lately I've been thinking about the F-word again and some dialogue in the movie targets language. One of the characters - an angel - said to a foul-mouthed team manager, "There are 698,000 words in the English language. We just want you to stop using one-hundredth of one-percent of them." I can't vouch for the numbers, but it is an admirable request, one that I'd like to be able to make occasion.
As much as I appreciate the versatility and power of the F-word, its casual use really annoyed me several times one day last week. I wonder what percentage of the whole body that one word is and why it is more offensive when used by women. A lady - or should I say "lady" - and I were having a pleasant discourse about her mobile service when a minor annoyance popped up at her end and she immediately tossed the bomb. The whole tenor of the conversation was broken like a cloud that suddenly appears in a clear, blue sky and that tainted the whole day.
I'm not sure what my point is here. Perhaps there isn't one. Or maybe it is this: Free speech is an inalienable right, to be sure, I would hope that people would use it more wisely.
