Assessing the Impact of ?#@*&%! « Communication & Common Sense

Assessing the Impact of ?#@*&%!

13Dec08

Conversation bubble with curse word symbols

The big story this week is once again coming out of Chicago. People nationwide are talking about the corruption charges facing Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. One discussion point in particular that has arisen from this scandal caught my attention – where is the line between business as usual and corruption? Pondering this question, it occurred to me that the answer directly relates to communication and, well, common sense.

Most of the quotes attributed to Gov. Blagojevich, and even one from his wife, that are being pulled from the complaint contain some form of the “F-word”. For example, when referring to the Chicago Tribune, he states, “our recommendation is fire all those f*****g people, get ‘em the f**k out of there and get us some editorial support.” Later he speaks of President-Elect Obama saying, “motherf****r [the President-elect] his senator. F**k him. For nothing? F**k him.” A quote from the Governor’s wife also contains the word, “to hold up that f*****g Cubs shit. . . f**k them.” These statements have infuriated people across the United States. But are we angrier about the content of the above statements or about the way in which the statements were made?

Consider this. If the above statements were made without the cursing and in a gentler manner, would there even be a corruption complaint with these statements included? I’ll revise the above quotes to allow us to better assess the impact of the cursing in comparison to speaking, as many of our mothers told us to for years, with a polite, firm tone without it.

When talking about the Tribune, “Our recommendation is that those individual’s that we have identified be disciplined and possibly terminated from their current positions. We hope in the future to have more support stemming from your editorials.”

In reference to Obama, “I’m very upset about President-Elect Obama wanting us to select his choice for senator without being willing to help us with our current situation as a sign of his appreciation.”

His wife’s quote, “It may upset them but we need to consider putting a hold on the Cubs deal.”

All of a sudden, the statements don’t look or feel so bad to us when we hear or read them. So is the line between business as usual and corruption found in the manner in which a statement is spoken? Apparently, it very well could be.

Let’s quickly look at another, more personal, example. How many of us have become really pissed off at our partners because of something that they said? How many of those partners, when confronted, have looked completely confused about what they did wrong? Has the ensuing argument ever contained the words “the way you said it…”

This is a classic argument in my household usually occurring after comments like “Do this…” or “What the hell were you thinking…” Had the comment been altered a bit and presented “Would you mind doing…” or “I didn’t understand why you chose to…” oftentimes the argument would be avoided completely.

Another scenario that the way in which we speak is frequently an issue is with children. I often find myself attempting to explain to them that it is okay to feel angry, hurt, or upset but it is not okay to scream at me or throw tantrums. Instead a better way to handle would be to simply talk to me and say, “Mom, it really made me angry when…” Sound familiar?