Stone Soup by Jan Eliot for July 17, 2011

Haha, my two year old has become quite the parrot… we have to moderate EVERYTHING we say.

LOL, I say “Jimmy Cricket”, most of the time…. Most of the time

Maybe they should stay inside.

Good catch, Val! :-) A good loud OOOOWWWW usually works for me. A friend’s daughter said the S word at age 3 on a regular basis. Not something that I would be proud of…

Fudgemuffins works for me.

Funny:) I like everyone’s different response to the possible sighting of a real live frog. Val must have a LOT of control to not say out loud what she’s really thinking.

I have learned to say SHHHHHut the front door.

I say fungus and shiiiiiiip.

“Shi-taki mushrooms”??.Or like in A Christmas Story: “‘Oh fudge!’ Only I didn’t say ‘fudge’…”

Just don’t stick your head in the sand, and say the very first word that comes to mind, If the uprising has been good in the past, you have nothing to worry about, haven’t you? It may start with a “F” or a “J” or a “S” so what? If I hit myself like Val, I wouldn’t think about what to say, I just say.

I say Frick when I get hurt around chldren…..lol

“Froggy”? Yeah, right…

“Dang nabbit” until i discovered a better way to hold the nail so if i missed I didn’t end up in as much pain if any.

I know this is a strip. Someone showed a better way use plyers. I did this hurts so bad and the pain.

That’s a weird thing to say instead of swearing.

In French, the word for cotton batting is ouate, and the word for seal is phoque. One of our beloved English-speaking humourists here in Quebec wrote a book (in English) which he called Ouate de Phoque. This is an example of a situation where you have to be bilingual (or better yet, bicultural) to appreciate a siuation. Swear words in France and Quebec are different. In France they are mostly based on excretion, the way we are used to in English. In Quebec they are based in the Catholic religion! like the Chalice, the Host, and the Tabernacle. Us English-speaking people (native English speakers are known as anglophones in Quebec) have no gut reaction to words like tabernacle, not the way we have to that word that is pronounced froggy in Stone Soup. I once tried to explain to a native Québecois how he could not use the “froggy” word in English. He just didn’t get it. I wonder whether it would have helped to use tabernacle as an analogy? I see today’s Stone Soup as bicultural – adults’ and children’s worlds.

The real trouble with foul language is not so much the words themselves, but the immature and inappropriate reactions to situations that make us want to say them. So by suppressing the urge to swear we’re not being dishonest or hypocritical; we’re merely making an effort to quell an inappropriate impulse (like oral gratification or the urge to smack someone) and respond to the situation like mature adults. Sometimes we fail, but that’s no reason to give up or conclude that it’s pointless. I liked lightenup’s suggestion of “OOOOWWWWW!” (after all, if you need help, there’s something to be said for reacting in a way that lets everyone know you’ve been hurt. I, of course, usually yell because I want sympathy, not help. (c:).

Lol! nice save mom!

A friend of mine says “S-S-S-S-Sugar!!!!”