A Way With Words

 

There have been many famous orators throughout history.  Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King Jr, Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, John F. Kennedy and others.

Souls who delivered powerful messages of motivation, inspiration, hope and social change.  Stirring speeches that echoed betterment of personal growth, civility & mankind.

To this list of greatness I would like to add one more not-so-well-known orator…..my father.

 

You see, my dad had a way with words…..curse words.

Dad was fluent in the language of expletives.

He was profane without being vulgar.  Tawdry, but not tasteless.

His swearing was unwrinkled.  Flawless in form & structure.

Fans of SpongeBob SquarePants called swear words “sentence enhancers” but to my dad they were a part of everyday language.

He was the only person I ever knew who could use a curse word as the noun, verb, adjective AND preposition in a single sentence.

So fluid in cussing, yet he wasn’t obscene.  He was coarse but not crude.

My dad’s words could make General Patton blush.  He would put rapper 50 Cent to shame.  He could sober a drunken sailor.

Mind you even HE had limits.

The four-letter “F” bomb was never uttered.

The F-word was for beginners by dad’s standards.  Over used by amateur linguists.  “Step aside tenderfoot, let ME handle this” I imagined him saying to those new to the language.

 

Sure, Franklin Roosevelt was a polished speaker who rallied the masses in America’s history.

But just imagine if FDR would have sprinkled a few of my dad’s favorite flowery phrases into his fireside chats.

Oh the greatness we would have achieved!