Shut Your Mouth!

It never ceases to amaze me just what offends people. I can watch the evening news and be appalled at the injustice and intolerance that we as human beings are capable of. We destroy environments, we murder, rape, lie and cheat. We do all these things under one banner or another; it doesn't matter what reason we give, it's always the innocent that suffer.

I have marched against, protested against, spoken out against and ridiculed all the above offences at sometime in my life. I have been moved to tears by the suffering caused to others by mankind's neglect. But I have never yet found it necessary to write a letter of complaint to anyone because I read the word 'fart' in a book! I have had complaints about my use of this word in one of my books, by one or two people who can't get outraged by any of the above subjects! I do like to point out to the morally indignant that the Bible has stories where a man is nailed to a piece of wood after being tortured, a woman does a striptease so that she can get a man decapitated, and another man takes his son up a mountain to kill him and offer his body as a human sacrifice, yet it causes them no offence. Mind you, to be fair to them, they don't use the word 'fart' anywhere in the Bible, as far as I know.

This week a couple were refused admission to the Natural History Museum because they were wearing onesies. I, personally, don't understand why fully grown adults enjoy wearing romper suits, but what people wear is up to them. Why should this have any bearing on people who want to visit a place, which is funded by us, the tax payers, to look on in wonder and improve their understanding of the world, if not their dress sense? Would they refuse the Pope entry? He wears a onesie, of sorts. I wasn't aware that the Natural History Museum had a dress code. When I was younger, you couldn't get into the local night clubs unless you had a suit jacket and trousers and shoes on. Trainers, jeans and t shirts were not allowed. All the guys who wore suits when I was younger were called Mods, and lots that I knew carried weapons and had psychotic tendencies. The guys in trainers and jeans were quite chilled out: who would you rather have drunk in your club?

I have heard this week that the government are looking to expel children as young as four from school for the use of the word 'gay', used as a derogatory term in school. Firstly, a child of four won't know what a derogatory term is, and won't know what gay is - they will have heard it from their parents! Words change over time. My grandparents told me that when they were younger, they were quite free and gay, and this from a couple of Catholic heterosexuals! Of course, words have different meanings and what was once a word for happiness has now become a word to define a sexuality. Words such as, "bad", "sad", and "wicked" all have different connotations now, although "fart" still means the same thing, as far as I know!

This is just a thought: to the ban it all, punish it all brigade, why not try and educate? The more people know about subjects, the more tolerant they become. When I was younger, sexist, racist and homophobic language was used on prime time TV, and even the most conservative of sitcoms was full of such talk. People of my age who claim to be so right-on that they didn't use any of this type of language back then are liars, we all did! Now most of us have moved away from our pure white heterosexual, bigoted lives and learned so much more that we no longer tolerate such ideology or language - knowledge is power.

But, having said all this, my wife recently told me of a woman who she knows who has a one-track mind. Unfortunately the track is self, self, self! She is by far one of the most selfish, intolerant people you could wish to meet. She has never worked in her life, but criticises people who have recently moved here and are working day and night to make ends meet. She bemoans the fact that she is over twenty stones in weight and blames the government for this! And she claims that HIV is a punishment from God for the wicked gay community, even though more heterosexuals have the illness now. When I told my wife that this woman was a fat, lazy bigot, my wife complained, not at the lazy or bigot, but at the word fat!

I have had this problem before. When I worked as a social worker I once said that a girl had lots of health problems because she was vastly overweight having put on six stones (84 pounds) in as many months. Another social worker from another authority pulled me up saying, “we prefer to describe her as an obesomorph! I would rather be called a fat bastard than an obesomorph! When did it become wrong to describe a fat person as fat? If you call them by another name that, no doubt, will became offensive in time, and they will still be fat!

They say the pen is mightier than the sword and the Charlie Hebdo massacre has proven this to be correct. Words can make you laugh, cry and angry! They are our communication, and without them we are no more than hairless apes. Don't be scared of using your language: the use of ignorant language shows the user up to be ignorant. Martin Luther King used words to change the lives of so many, his words are still repeated to this day. Robin Williams used words to make millions of people laugh, but couldn't find the words to ask for help. Hitler used words to cause the destruction of half of the world. Unfortunately words of hate are easier to understand than words of peace for some.

As a writer, words are my building blocks: they are what I use to build a story. They help shape and sculpt a story, and when the story is built the words are all left there in all their glory to enthrall, scare, amuse, disgust, engage, entertain and educate.

So people may want me to shut my mouth, and keep my opinions to myself. They may claim that, as a writer, I should be more eloquent with the use of words, but you cant stop a fart!