Friday, April 08, 2011

Gob

Eavesdropping is necessarily a snide pastime.

I don’t think I’ve ever eavesdropped on a single conversation and come away thinking, “Ooh, they’re lovely people – I wish they were in my friend’s network so I could get to know them better”.

Generally I come away shaking my head, sneering, laughing and quite often disgusted at the small minded, bigoted, malapropism-rich outpourings of my fellow man.

Of course, I’m quite willing to accept that maybe I am just a big snob per se and congenitally live in contempt of my fellow humans.

But that in no way invalidates my claim that eavesdropping inevitably positions those being eavesdropped upon well beneath the moral hobnailed boots of those doing the eavesdropping. It’s just human nature.

This being the case, I was walking quite innocently back to work after my lunchbreak yesterday afternoon when I stopped at a pedestrian crossing. While I waited for the lights to change in my favour two other pedestrians approached the lights behind me and waited at my back. Two young teenage girls, the ubiquitous mobile phone held out in their hands like a Ghostbuster PKE metre and their overly glossed lips pulled into pouts big enough to form the south facing wall of a bouncy castle.

“Fockin’ gaffa tape. Fockin’ gaffa tape. Bastard. I mean, look, that’s what he wants me to get. Fockin’ gaffa tape. Can you believe it? Bastard. Fockin’ gaffa tape.”

And on and on and on. Those same few phrases repeated over and over while the orator’s companion laughed like a drain and no doubt was as familiar with the gutter as one.

I actually began counting how many times this delightful young lady swore. I got to 15 before the green man finally appeared and rescued me.

As I sped away I could still hear, “Fockin’ gaffa tape, fockin’ gaffa tape, bastard” singeing the air like hastily deposited nuclear waste and I found myself wondering whether anyone on this planet can ever find such constant expletive incontinence attractive. Or even think it adult or mature?

I mean I am right in thinking that someone who effs and blinds every second word is chromosome deficient, aren’t I? Their emotional / intellectual development has somehow stalled at the ‘bike shed badinage’ stage and they’re forever stuck with the mentality of a 15 year old where they think that heavy use of the eff word automatically bestows upon them the heady mantle of ‘Adult’.

I instantly found myself dismissing this pair as a couple of foul-mouthed, uncouth, thick as shit, nob chompers who will end up working in McDonalds and exorcising their dissatisfaction with life by wiping malicious bogeys onto the underside of all the bread buns.

Which isn’t fair. They might actually make it to Burger King.

Joking.

They might actually be intelligent. They might even be nice girls. From good homes. With a staunch moral view of the world and an acceptance letter from Oxford.

But I don’t think so.

We are how we talk. Our voice and choice of words express our personalities and our aspirations. I’m not talking about accents here. I’m talking about what we say rather than how we say it. To choose to swear so prolifically and so (deliberately) loudly speaks volumes about a mindset that has not only normalised aggressive displays of behaviour but has also promoted them as being the most efficient way to navigate modern society.

And that is deeply, deeply saddening and possibly speaks volumes about the rest of us.

Possibly.

Or it could just be that a potty mouth is a habit that people fall into when young and like all nasty habits needs a jolly good kick to get it broken.

Believe you me, I was tempted.



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49 comments:

Rol said...

Ah, fock you, Steve. Fock you and the focking horse you rode in on. Go fock yourself.

I just had to leave that focking comment before anyone else did.

Steve said...

Rol: you smart-arsed little focker. Focking swivel!

Trish said...

As you well know my darling husband is always talking about fockin' gaffa tape as he sorts out yet another wobbly/broken item in our home. When he rings me and asks me to buy some more, I usually shout in the street that the fockin bastard has asked me to get fockin gaffa tape. So I can understand that poor girl's frustration. She must be married to a doctor too.

Steve said...

Trish: you weren't in Leamington Spa yesterday were you? 'Cos if you were, can I just say, you've really let yourself go. And it was much too hot for Uggies.

Trish said...

Don't you diss my Uggies you focker!

Steve said...

Trish: yeah? You ain't all that. Come and have a go if you think you're focking hard enough. Your focking milkshake is no way better than mine!

Gorilla Bananas said...

"Fock" was funny when Tom Conti said "You think I want to make fock with you," in Shirley Valentine. Those girls were just crying out for a firm hand to discipline them.

Steve said...

Gorilla Bananas: a firm hand? I think these girls would need an all-in wrestler with a pit bull... and even then he'd need back-up to keep them under control.

Suzanne said...

Ahem - 'nob chompers'...WTF!!!
Cheered me up this afternoon, thanks.

Steve said...

Suzanne: I know. I'm a hypocrite. I have the biggest potty mouth of them all.

Very Bored in Catalunya said...

I was going to ask if it wasn't Trish...

Were you not curious as to why 'he' had bought her the 'fockin gaffa tape', it's bugging the hell out of me.

Steve said...

Very Bored in Catalunya: my understanding is that she had been sent out to buy some gaffa tape on a male relative's or boyfriend's behalf... quite possibly because he had murdered someone and wanted to gaffa tape their body into a carpet before dumping it into a quarry lake.

Nota Bene said...

No, no, no. The Focking Gaffer Tape was to tie her up for a bondage sex session...Entirely reasonable therefore.

Steve said...

Nota Bene: if anything it was to tape up her focking mouth (one would hope).

MOTHER OF MANY said...

I had the misfortune of going to the local surgery today to pick up a prescription when the local High School were kicking out their little darlings.I had to restrain myself from asking the little sweet hearts to watch their language in front of my ten year old.However, I was totally unprepared for the 14(she could have been 13!)year old girl at the door of the surgery who shouted to her friends I HAVE TO SEE THE DOCTOR BECAUSE I HAVE MISSED MY PERIOD! Save me. I think I would prefer to listen to the bad language !

Steve said...

Ally: good grief. I assume she wasn't talking about missing a class at school...

Between Me and You said...

It`s their parents who need a jolly good kick - and their parents before them. Ask my sister, she`s got to try and teach the little bastards History, if they come to school at all!
Thanks for the laugh though Steve. Kick-started my weekend you have :)

Not From Lapland said...

What do you facking mean it doesn't make me looking like a facking adult? Bah. Next you'll be telling me facking smoking doesn't make me look facking cool as fock. and we both facking know it does.

Facking is sooooo posh.

Steve said...

Heather: yeah, you are posh entcha cos you say facking while I say fackin which is far more street and hard and you'd know that if you hadn't addled yer brain smokin cheap tabs all day...

Bish Bosh Bash said...

Stephen – Don’t want to rain on your parade but…the chic pair of young debutants you are referring to, weren’t in fact saying “Focking gaffa tape” at all. What they were actually saying was “Focking a fat ape”. Totally diff Steve babe. Totally diff.

I mean if you’d just been commissioned to spend the night tending to the every needs of a large rampant hirsute hominidae primate, you might well be inclined to let fly with a few choice ‘fockings’ with your best lesbian mate at the zebra crossing. I know I always did.

vegemitevix said...

You see my problem is nobody says it right here. I'm thinking the gaffa tape was to carry out the bondage for beginners instructions in the book bought at Ann Summers, along with the whip and the red faux silk corset.

AGuidingLife said...

how many fockin times do I have to tell you and Trish, it's fockin duct tape. Duct tape, for fock sake. If she had been behind me I would have turned round and said "fockin duct tape you stupid fockin c..."

On a higher note isn't singeing an interesting word, it looks so wrong, I appreciate you can't remove the 'e' but it must be unusual for a word to go ...eing (except being!!!which I saw the minute I wrote that) and not actually change it's form to accommodate the rule. I have spent longer pondering that than the whole post and thoroughly enjoyed the ponder too. thanks :)

Steve said...

Phil: focking a fat ape? I think even a fat ape would have more taste (and less chest hair) then the two girlies in question. Though it does add a new meaning to Bill Oddie's exortation that we all do, do, do the funky gibbon.

Vegemitevix: gaffa tape is so passe. Cable ties are so much more effective and allow one to indulge in a spot of "Guantanamo Bay sex" fantasizing. Or so I've been told.

Kelloggsville: what about mingeing as opposed to minging or is mingeing not really a real word but just a word that I'd like to be real (a verb obviously)? Ooh! Ooh! Swingeing! There's another one! Hey - this could turn into a competition!

The bike shed said...

Outside my house is wonderful town park; beautifully kept, trees, greens, play areas - fabulous facility. Apart from the swearing teenagers who leave litter everywhere. Every night it is cleaned up and returned to its pristine condition and every day they come back and do it again. I know it's a middle class middle aged thing to hate this so much, and I know that hanging round the park drinking and swearing is part of teenagers growing up, part of making their mark on the world that they will eventually grow out of. Yet I still fucking hate it!

Steve said...

Mark: no, I'm with you. I hate littering as much as I hate foul mouthed litte shits in hoodies and Nikes who think they're God's gift and are owed a living. In fact I shall be writing about the former next week after seeing some scrote deliberately wedge an empty crisp packet into the slats of a fence instead of the bin that was a mere 30 yards ahead of him. It's a good job I'm not a military man 'cos I'd go to war over shit like this.

Löst Jimmy said...

WTF

Wanderlust said...

What about whingeing?

And re: littering, men have gone to war over much less.

Anonymous said...

YOu sound like my husband. He views everyone else with contempt, regularly.
Great post!

M2M

libby said...

Fockin? Fockin? what sort of accent was that?
Obviously not natives to Leamington...oh hang on..fockin...yep just said it outloud with gusto...teenspeak pure and simple. Fucking is such a great word to say, particularly with emphasis...and y'know I just want to know what the tape was for.....

Steve said...

Löst Jimmy: eloquently put.

Owen: I'd rather listen to a pig trying to sing than this pair.

Wanderlust: whingeing! Good one. Erm... Are you trying to tell me something?

M2M: great minds scorn alike.

Libby: please see my answer to Very Bored in Catalunya above - I'd put money on it.

Nana Go-Go: sorry, your comment slipped under the barbed wire without me noticing. I would love to kick the parents... but nobody knows who or where they are.

Marginalia said...

Gorilla Bananas- now that's someone I can relate to. Firm hands and red botties. He's not a Cheltenham Girls is he?

Steve said...

Marginalia: eh? You've lost me totally. Do you guys need to get a room?

The Sagittarian said...

Sorry I'm late but I got held up at the crossing by some middleaged ol' git....

The Poet Laura-eate said...

I focking hate those low life scum who swear I focking do.

Steve said...

Amanda: I had no idea you drank Buckfast...

Laura: you focking said it, sister.

Keith said...

Maybe Fockin' was the brand name. Maybe her boyfriend was just being fetishistically specific about his D.I.Y. products, like Ronseal or Bosch ( neither of which I will leave the house without ).

Steve said...

Keith: I think you may be right. That would explain why, whenever I ever have the misfortune to be in Homebase, the aisles ring with dozens of customers all muttering under their breath, "where are the Fockin' screwdrivers...?"

the fly in the web said...

Makes me weep...no one gives a damn about these kids...not parents, not teachers.
Yes, they're horrible and will doubtless produce more horrible offspring because their horizons and those of their parents have been deliberately dumbed down.

Steve said...

The fly in the web: a depressing prospect indeed.

Being Me said...

I thought the mention of the Funky Gibbon was funny, but then Keith had to go and mention that Focking might be the brand name and now I have totally lost it. That was focking geeeenius.

So what was Vicky Pollard and her mate doing in Leamington Spa anyway?

Steve said...

Being Me: isn't it obvious? They were looking to give someone a gob-job.

lunarossa said...

I have always thought that people who swear and shout their mouth out all the time suffer of inferiority complex or are in the wrong. Now I think that they are simply brutes and out kids think that imitating them make them look adult and cool. So sad! Ciao. A.

Steve said...

Lunarossa: I think that's part of the trouble; people's role-models these days are pretty ropey and down-at-heel. As The Stranglers once sang: no more heroes anymore...

diney said...

Well - after all those comments I'm at a fecking loss for words

Steve said...

Diney: feck? Is that an Irish lilt I'm picking up there...?!

;-)

Val said...

My kitchen hears a lot of swearing from me, and so does the corner cupboard when I walk into it. I swear like a trooper in my own home but very rarely anywhere else. And I learnt to swear late, not when I was a teen!

As for those two at the crossing, maybe they were just drunk. I'd suggest some f'kin' gaffa tape, really... which was probably what someone else suggested to them too!

Anonymous said...

"Of course, I’m quite willing to accept that maybe I am just a big snob per se and congenitally live in contempt of my fellow humans"

Which is one of the things that makes you awesome! LOL. Love the post. Had my own lovely eavesdropping session. Apparently all white people are creepy child molesters and racist...lol. Has to be the most racist comment I've ever heard.

London City (mum) said...

Stevie babe. You and me will put the feckin' world to rights one day.

I have rants against these types every single day. In fact, now that I think of it we should record a running commentary the two of us.
For posterity, of course.

Fuck it.

LCM x

Steve said...

LCM: it's you and me against the hordes of slackers, chavs, giros and ne'erdowells. We're outnumbered several million to 2 but, fuck it, we have intelligence and discernment and education on our sides. We'll fuckin' walk it!