Self-improvement increases vocabulary
by Andrew Smith

One of the things we outdoorsmen like to do best is to get out into the clean, fresh air, up in God's Country somewhere, where everything is pristine and quiet and we can cuss up a blue streak.

There's almost nothing as satisfying as using a long string of unprintable profanity to express the sheer beauty of raw, untamed Nature. Although normal, G-rated, nouns and verbs can also be expressive under certain conditions, when you've really got something to express, but you don't know exactly what it is, it's best to use profanity. A simple, heartfelt "#@$%!" can often sum up feelings that you'd normally need a psychologist and a bottle of Valium to sort out. So in this way, profanity is also a great time saving device.

Like the other day. Me'n Frank were out in the boat, fishing. The thinnest sliver of a new moon hung over the far horizon, as sharp as a splinter of glass in the pale sky. A coyote howled hauntingly, just as they always do in my articles, right when I need them.

"Boy! Look at that #$@% moon!" exclaimed Frank. "Why that #$@% thing is #@$% beautiful!"

"What's #@$% ?" I asked, puzzled.

"Beats me," said Frank. "That happens just about every time I go outdoors in a family newspaper."

"Weird," I commented. "But you're right about the #$@% moon."

"#@$% #@$% #@$%!" said Frank.

You can see here that even though Frank's profanity had to wear word-condoms to get in the paper, it was still very descriptive, and hence effective. It also saved him a great deal of time, because without profanity he'd have had to describe the moon in exact, nauseating detail, including the faint tinge of red in the sky, spreading softly like blood into the deeper night. And the way the razor thin curved blade reflecting on the still water, and the scent of the silent pines, reminded him of the bittersweet gin he drank one time with Uta, his first wife. And how they travelled to Pringle for their honeymoon and almost made it except the car broke down south of Custer. Then he'd have started crying, and I would've had to hit him with an oar.

So when Frank said, "Look at the #@$% moon!" I knew exactly what he meant. The real point here is, I guess, that boys will be boys, and we got to say those bad words before Mom stopped us.

The art of swearing, that is, using vulgarity and unmannerly language effectively, is an old and illustrious tradition among outdoorsmen. It's not just a filthy habit like smoking menthol cigarettes, or picking your nose.

Speaking of picking your nose, did you know that besides humans, apes, monkeys and orangutangues are all famous nose pickers? Whereas horses, for instance, are not. Losing your finger up a nostril in search of God-knows-what is a very primate thing to do. Anyway, it makes me wonder. If apes can pick their noses like us, maybe they can swear like us too. If they do, I'd like to learn how to cuss in ape. 'Cause I'm always trying to expand my vocabulary. It's a self-improvement thing.

When I was a kid we were always trying to learn to cuss in a foreign language. That way we could swear right out loud, right in front of our parents, without getting whacked for it. Someone always had a bunch of nonsensical syllables that meant something awful in Spanish, or perhaps Swahili, for us to learn. I memorized many of these thing religiously and used them whenever the occasion permitted. Years later, when I repeated them to people that actually spoke the tongue in question, I found that not one of them meant anything. Just as well, I guess.

Sad to say, I haven't changed much. I still have a potty mouth. I've tried and tried to quit, but with no luck at all. Actually, I shouldn't say no luck, for I never swear until I have to talk. I guess I'm just flawed, and we're all going to have to live with it.

It's human nature, I think, to curse and cuss and use vulgar expressions. It's in our bones, in our blood. And I have something that proves it, to me, at least.

When I was growing up one of my great passions was hunting arrowheads in the plowed fields around our house. Over the years I found bucketfuls of handworked flints, some fine and colorful, some dull and clumsy. I was so taken with my hobby that I even learned to knap flint myself, so I could participate in some way in the mysteries of the past.

One day up on a ridge I found a broken blade of white flint. It was no great find, because the piece had never been finished. It had snapped in half and been discarded, which seemed odd to me, because it was still a very workable piece. Something about it made me put it in my pocket.

A few days later I happened to walk below that ridge, and I picked up another broken, white flint blade. It reminded me so much of the first one that I dug the other out of my pocket and put the two together. They were a perfect fit. One piece. The maker had attempted to strike a long flute down the center of the blade. But it didn't go quite straight, and so the blade snapped.

And the fella was so disgusted that he left one half laying on the ground, and then stood up and sent the other one sailing off the hilltop. It landed below the ridge, some sixty yards away. Thousands of years later, I picked it up. And when I did, I recognized that fellow, and I knew he was just like me.

And I bet he said, "#@$%!"