This isn't the first time I've stolen an idea from Andy Palumbo, and it likely won't be the last. Andy's a bright guy. I've been telling him that for years. He won't listen.
Damned kids.
A recent post of his, though, tied in nicely with recent remarks I'd made about WARM. My contention was that WARM once treated its listeners like errant children.
Yes, I could be an errant child. That was a lifetime ago.
And so it is I borrow from a man whose "career path" and mine run side by side. Though the years may not fall into line side by side, the places and mediums do indeed.
Andy had some problems with the term "pissed off." Surely the term bothers him none. I know Andy. His trouble was with the trouble others have in using the term on the air. Not using it for shock value, mind you. No, not at all.
Andy wasn't sitting there scowling at Mrs. Clark, debating whether or not to say, "You know, Noreen, this forecast really pisses me off."
While I'm at it, I have to confess that typing it out here is making me squirm some - and I'm also wondering where the term originated. Why "pissed off?" Who came up with that?
My mouth can be as foul, or as sophisticated, as any particular situation dictates. Even still, this isn't about obscenities. What it is about is having the arrogance to act as surrogate Mommy, Daddy, Aunt Helen, Uncle Ed, and Grandma and Gramps to, in this case, a television audience.
It's about protecting people that neither need nor want your protection. It's about sheltering those who'd rather you'd leave them alone and quit telling them what they can and cannot hear, what they should and should not hear. It's about abandoning the notion that anyone has any right to tell adults what's good for them and what is not.
The term POed has become part of the lexicon, certainly acceptable in even the most delicate of company. Heck (or maybe even Hell!), suck has likewise become an everyday word to be used in a variety of ways and situations by those of any social status and just about any age.
Do I really need to make an establishing statement about what suck really means? We all know, right?
If not, by golly, you might not be old enough to have unsupervised access to the internet.
Shucks, you might not be old enough to visit the bathroom alone.
Gosh, dare I go on?
Jeepers Catfish, what to do?
The context in which Andy encountered the dilemma about using the term "pissed off" was within the coverage of a very important news story, a story in which an individual who they sought out for a comment used the term.
If your interviewee, known also as "the soundbite," says "pissed off," then put it on the air. If you can't find the gumption to go where you should with this, then leave the soundbite out altogether, don't censor it, don't feel the need to protect your viewers. They don't want to be protected.
I don't want to be protected, don't want you thinking for me.
I don't want your shielding me from real words used by real people in real situations. Worse yet, most offensive of all, is that those who tut-tut over hearing the words on TV use them all the time themselves. I know my share of these people. Their hypocrisy is galling.
And let's not lose sight of the fact that these are words that we, as in us English talkers, created. They're not on those tablets, there is no "...in vain" involved here. These are simple words, letters arranged such that some prude somewhere decided they were improper.
So, Andy, you've got me in your corner. But I caution you that a mutual friend of ours once scolded me harshly for using the term "Mister Poopie-Pants" on the air. I wonder if he remembers. I wonder if he's embarrassed.
Maybe he's still pissed-off.
If so, he might consider what I heard over and over again from a wee lad forward in my not so proper growing-up neighborhood, "Better pissed off than pissed on."
