bad words

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Dear Jack: 5 “Bad Words” You Use When You’re around People You’re Comfortable With

5 and a half years old.

Dear Jack: 5 “Bad Words” You Use When You’re around People You’re Comfortable With

Dear Jack,

This past weekend, as Mommy’s sister’s family was in town from Pennsylvania, they got to hear all about butts, buttheads, poop, Donald Trump, and eyeballs; all of which are “bad words” in your vocabulary.

With us having very special visitors with us for these 4 days, you got away with taking no naps. And when you take no naps, you are less discreet in your words and actions.

(That’s one of the many reasons I don’t spank you; I don’t believe in physically punishing children because of how they act when they are hungry, tired, lonely, bored or sick– which are the reasons you “act out” when you do.)

In our house, you are not exposed to actual “bad words”. The only time you hear those is when, as the cool dad, I take you out go to see superhero movies– though you obviously don’t recognize the cuss words when you hear them since you don’t know them to begin with.

However, you have your own rolodex of bad words; most of which involve potty humor. The main one is butts.

Dear Jack: 5 “Bad Words” You Use When You’re around People You’re Comfortable With

I remember one time at the dinner table, having not taken a nap that day, you just kept saying, “Bbbuttsss!” then immediately laughing.

You were in a loop. You broke me down after a few times. You had me laughing every time you said it, though I was supposed to be a responsible adult, like Mommy was being.

However, it was indeed Mommy who bought you the book My Dad is a Butthead for the Kindle for when we went on our last major family vacation in Destin, for your 5th birthday- which happened to be exactly 6 months ago today.

(I realize that butts and butthead both have the word “butt” in them, but I consider them separate words in that a butthead is a person.)

As for poop, I suppose it’s always been one of your favorite bad words. That one is simply a given.

But you took it upon yourself to adopt Donald Trump on your list, after hearing that “Donald Trump is a bad word” from watching an episode of Fuller House. Granted, I personally don’t have a probably with you making Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton into bad words, as far as I’m concerned.

Dear Jack: 5 “Bad Words” You Use When You’re around People You’re Comfortable With

Eyeball is my favorite bad word of yours. Like Donald Trump, you decided on your own that this is an inappropriate phrase to use.

I love how you think you’re getting away with saying something sneaky when you shout out the word “eyeball” in vain.

Granted, you don’t say any of these bad words at school; or at least you don’t get in trouble for it if you do.

It’s not just with family that you have no filter with when you are in need of a nap. I remember a few months ago, we were meeting our friend Jarrid Wilson (and his wife and young son). He is a Christian blogger and author.

I’m glad that in the midst of us all having brunch together at Whole Foods, he found it hilarious that the word “butts” kept coming up in conversation.

As long as your bad words consist of butts, buttheads, poop, Donald Trump, and eyeballs, I’m just not too worried about it.

Love,

Daddy

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Jenny Slate Will Not Be Fired from SNL for F-Word Accident

That may not be official yet. It’s just my educated prediction.

I am a black-and-white kind of person. Either it is or it isn’t. That’s why the idea of censorship on national TV intrigues me. Because the rules of the game aren’t always in black-and-white. After all, there are actually no official guidelines regarding which words can and can not be used on TV- instead each network sets its own limits in an effort not to lose sponsors.

In a faux pas that wins the prize for irony, last night on the season premiere of Saturday Night Live there was a skit about “biker chicks” that made fun of them for having potty mouths, as the actors used the word “frickin'” as a form of self-censorship. New girl and Jewish comedian Jenny Slate, very early on in the skit, slipped the real word by mistake, puffing up her cheeks immediately after, as a sign of recognition of her accidental crime.

 

Instantly I was shocked by what I had just heard. Not offended, since the movies I choose to watch are loaded with “f-bombs”. Just very surprised, like a 2nd grader hearing the bully say a Bad Word, gasping that the Rule was just broken, wondering if anyone will “tell on” him to the teacher.

Knowing pretty well she said what I thought she said, this was confirmed right before the credits rolled at the end of the episode as fellow actor Seth Myers hugged her in a fashion that expressed, “Hey don’t worry about it- it was an accident. You’ll be fine.”

My favorite song my 8th grade year was “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” by REM. While a line of the chorus is “I never understood the frequency”, sang several times throughout the song, at the very end of the song for the final chorus the line changes to “I never understood, don’t f— with me.” I think I was the only person that caught it when in 1994 REM performed the song on Saturday Night Live. It went uncensored. The funny thing is, Comedy Central continues to air it as a rerun, still not editing it out.

 

Right now every article that has popped up on the Internet about this recent incident is going on to tell that in 1981 SNL actor Johnny Rocket was the first person to say the F-Word (unapologetically the moment he did it) on national television and that he was fired for it. And now the question is if  Jewish comedienne Jenny Slate will have the same fate. I have an answer.

No.

Last season SNL did a hilarious skit called “Sofa King”. That pushed the envelope for F-Word censorship more than anything they’ve done in the past. The skit was a fake commercial for a furniture store called Sofa King, in which the characters used the name of their store to describe how great everything is there. It took most people, including the audience, a minute or two to realize why the skit was even funny.

And once it clicked, it was genius. The actors were saying “sofa king” as a huge logo with the phrase popped up on the screen, but it phonetically sounds exactly like something else. It was a clever way to get around the censors while still saying the F-word multiple times. They totally got away with it. And what they did was completely intentional. And it wasn’t an issue with the censors. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_NqXSbh5Ns

 

So to fire the new girl for an obvious accident during late night hours would simply gain too much negative publicity for NBC. Being that they are the #4 network, if anything this will improve ratings for SNL and the network itself. More people will be tuning in to find out who this Jenny Slate girl is, hoping she will slip up again.

Obviously, as hundreds of people right now are Googling and YouTubing the incident, they are clearly not offended by what happened. If they were, like so many were with the Justin Timberlake/Janet Jackson Super Bowl Fiasco, then it would be a different story.

 

While most people don’t approve of the word or use it on a regular basis, everyone slips at certain times. I know I have. Even if no one was around to hear it. Or even if I wasn’t on a live show on national TV.

This will turn out to be a fortunate accident for her. An instant transformation from New Girl to Jenny Slate, a name we now all know and recognize.

The Slip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJOvVdl0DXU

The Hug http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoSmGfJCEAo