Cuss, as in Snort
 
 
             May I ask you a personal question?   
             Do you cuss?
              I am not talking about cursing or swearing.  I mean old-fashioned, let-your-hair-down-stomp-on-the-ground-and-flare-your-nostrils-like-a-bull-on-steroids.     Good enough for our forebears,  good enough for me.
              Pretty sure it was the grammar police who are responsible for the demise of cuss.  You know, those .&*^#%!+*%#*!. – er, I mean sons-a-guns –  who have us pretending that we can wrap our mouths around, “Were I to do that” and “With whom would you like to speak?”
              ‘nough t’make a person cuss.
              Problem is, not everybody appreciates a dirty mouth.  Even I have my limits.  For instance – .&*^#%!+*%#*!.  Excuse me, but this   .&*^#%*!g   key keeps
.&*^#%!+*g sticking.
               .&*^#%!+*%#*!.!!
               There, that’s better.
              “Potty mouth,” people have taken to calling it.   Me, I never warmed to the expression.  Seems juvenile.   Cussin’ is – or should be – an adult sport.
              Only it isn’t a sport.    It’s a safety valve.  Like, if you couldn’t spout off, you might haul off and deck your poor dog this side of Christmas.  
              Small cats who have been declawed are perfect, I find.
              .&*^#%!+*%#*!.   I went and told on myself.  
              Before you call the ASPCA, please know I am joking.  I am too much of a .&*^#%!+* coward to smack anyone.   If they are big, forget it.  I have seen too many boxing movies not to know what it would do to my knuckles.  Shape I’m in, probably come away with a broken arm.
             Broken everything.  
             I mean, I have watched Westerns.  One little tap on some whiskery coot’s chin and you are flying off a balcony onto a table where three very large, very angry-looking men are drinking very strong liquor from very large tankards when they aren’t polishing their very, very, very large guns.
            I have wanted to use adverbs for such a long time.    Hope you don’t have Editor Anal Nitpick on  speed dial   (after ASPCA?).
            Actually, I would like to clean up my language.  Not to the point where I sound like a .&*^#%!+g Sunday school teacher or like I’m in the middle of a .&*^#%!g  interview for a job that there are like 5,000 other .&*^#%!+*ing applicants waiting in line to interview for. (Catch the ballsy preposition-hanging-off-the-end?]   Just, you know, spruce up a bit.
           Mother and one of my grandmothers kept Lava soap handy for such occasions.  You know, that .&*^#-brown bar that was smooth as heavy-grade sandpaper and tasted worse.  Like “number two?”:  God, I am old.
           Trouble with most cuss words is, they get more wear than a prayer mat the day after an Elks’ convention.    Take the F word.   
           Hollywood has some very talented writers.  Sometimes they even get work.  Unfortunately, the Money Men  prefer monkeys with typewriters. (Why is it always Men?}   Monkeys love to type the F word.  It doesn’t require  any awkward and tiresome stretches to letters such as. . .wait a sec--.&*^#%!# %! - Q  or - excuse me again – &*^#%! *g   B.  And it can mean many different things.
            Same with dude, only it’s easier to get anger and frustration across with the F-word.
            “Doooooood” not only sounds playful, it implies confirmation.  “Dude?” implies puzzlement, or in certain cases, fear.   “DoooooOOOD!”  clearly signifies Way t’GO.   I have heard stand-up comedians  come up with a surprising number of variations.  But the F-word says it all.
            Or so monkeys with typewriters think.
            Someone give me a word for think that doesn’t mean think.
            Need to get to the point, you say?
            You mean there is one?
            .&*^#%!+*%#*!.  I forg–. . .oh, yeah.
            In my very considered and very, very erudite and very, very, VERY  important opinion, we need to bring back some of the slam-bang-ring-a-dingers our aforesaid forefathers used.
            Here is a short list for your consideration:
 
            Balderdash
            Shufferin’ shuccotash
            Bullhockey
            Ballocks.
            Jumpin’ Jehosophat
            Your mother’s uncle   [Scratch that.  It is $*%$! embarrassing.]       
             Law’s-s-mercy  [mild to the point of milquetoast, but has its       place]
            Shit in yer hat   [slipped. . .SORRY]
            Holy Toledo    [see Your mother’s uncle]
            Bah humbug     [only to be used between Thanksgiving and      New Year’s.    Preferably in Philadelphia.]]
            SheZAM     [see DooooooOOOOD]     
            Poppycock
            Gosh, darn, durn, goldurn, goldurnit, h-e-double-toothpicks, shucks, etc.
            You are a: lizard, creep, roue, satyr, nympho, person of low character, lowlife,  turkey, buzzard, turkey-buzzard, swizzlestick, wimp, loop-de-loo, loon,  wingnut, melon head, weirdo, politician, sore head, knot head, lawyer,  stick-in-the-mud, horse’s neck, horse’s patoo, yesterday’s news, stinker,  pain-in-the-(neck), flimflam artist, meal-mouth, menace, apple-polisher, yes-man/woman, worm on a hot rock, nit on a gnat’s (gonad), pencil pusher, snake-in-the-grass, viper, asp, private body part, public body part, freeloader, souse, teetotaler,  egghead, dunce, fancy-pants, bum, ne’er-do-well, hoity-toit, tattle-tale,  rat, rat-fink, dawg, cheapskate, skinflint, spendthrift, wastrel, arty type,  poet..   [Complete list for $99.95 plus $109.95 postage and handling.]
            Crimenetly  [crime-in-ET-lee]
            Supercalifragicali–. . .whatever the rest of the dang thing is.
            Baloney OR hogwash.   Don’t push it.
            Cheesh
            Holy Katzenjammer
            Swell, goodie, right-e-o, and words of that ilk [may be accused of being  a sissy – prob’ly are, but that is a fish of another kettle.           
             Jiminy Crickets       [ditto]
             H E L P      [where did that come from?]
 
            Lots more from which to choose, as the grammar police say I have to say.
            How do you spell raspberry?   Tempted to tell them to shit in their. . .whoa.   Ain’ talkin’ ‘at way no more.
            Hmmmmmm.
           “Go away” doesn’t have much of a ring.
            Y’think?
 
 
 
©) peajay   /ln Phyllis Jean Green, September, 2005
All Rights Reserve   “Inquire with– .&*^#%+*%#*. -in.” :)