What A Hole

In my whole life, I have probably encountered only 1 or 2 people who do not swear, at all. Swearing is so common, even my mother swears. Her favourite phrase is "dog poo" in hokkien. Most of us have our favourite words or phrases. (Please comment and share)

Most of the expletives we use have been uttered so freely for years, we no longer pause and think what it actually means. Take for example somebody cuts into my lane without signalling his car and I say "asshole!" If you actually visualise an asshole (albeit a real one) it is actually quite funny. Why asshole? I suppose it's rather self-explanatory being the exit point of our waste system.

How about "f***" and its various uses as an adjective, noun or verb. Why ever "f***"? I find this rather odd seeing that humans are sexual beings.

However I do take offence when swearing is directed at someone's family. I strongly feel that if you are upset with someone, just take it out on the offending person. There is no need to involve the rest of the family. I did make an exception to this rule once when someone on the bus stole money from my bacpack 12 years ago on metro bus ride from Kota Raya. I cursed the thief and his next 7 generations. I must have been inspired by the legendary Puteri Gunung Ledang, or was that the Langkawi legend?

We or most of us swear so regularly that most cuss words have lost their effectiveness or oomph. For example "oh s***" is so common to express unpleasant surprises and "f***" to mark the beginning of deep s***. In fact deep s*** is funny. Imagine standing in a puddle of poo!

Language in my opinion also determine the oomphness of a swear word. Until today, I still find hokkien words to describe the male and female reproductive organs to be outrageous. I generally reserve the use of those words for exceptionally pissing off occasions ("piss off" is a recognised phrasal verb in English).

Well, my swearing days are numbered since Eddie is picking up words very quickly these days. I will soon resort to spelling, if not in English will then be "p-u-k-i-m-a-k."