Think before speaking

What the *bleep* happened to society?

Cursing and explicit content has become the new thing in today’s society. I think it is highly unpleasant and unacceptable. Last time I checked it was frowned upon by most of society, and 10 years ago it was rarely heard of. I find it completely avoidable and repulsive. Now the majority of the adult society is cursing left and right in colleges including Crowder and every movie or TV show society watches has some type of explicit content.

Although people relate this to their constitutional right of free speech and everyone deserves free speech, does this mean cursing should be accepted in everyday conversation? Freedom of speech should not be destroyed with cursing, because after hearing the foul language enough, it just becomes an everyday word like “hello” or “good morning.” The reason we learned vocabulary was so we didn’t use the F-bomb, and the Lord’s name in vain to describe every single thing we did.

What causes this downfall?

Across all networks and prime time hours, use of the bleeped or muted f-word increased from 11 instances total in 2005 to 276 instances in 2010 an increase of 2,409 percent, and that The Fox broadcast network showed the greatest per-hour increase in use of profanity from 2005 to 2010, with an increase in all profanity across all prime-time hours of 269 percent according to parentstv.org.

However, television is not the only thing evolving. Movies are as well. The Motion Picture Association of America has five ratings for movies.

Three out of five of these any one can go watch without an adult, but what is the difference in PG-13, which “may go beyond the PG rating in theme, violence, nudity, sensuality, language, adult activities or other elements, but does not reach the restricted R category,” and R which contains “adult themes, adult activity, hard language, intense or persistent violence, sexually-oriented nudity, drug abuse or other elements.”

Where is it acceptable?

I can guarantee I will hear some type of foul language during a day at school. Whether in the hallway on my way to class or while I’m in the student center doing homework or eating lunch. I experience it even in the classroom during class time.

In high school this was unacceptable, and now that we are adults in college we have the right to say what we like. So does that make it ok for professors to use it? This is a classroom where we pay to learn things, not go and listen to or watch content that may pertain to the subject, but is inexcusable to use in a classroom. I feel like we could watch at least five other videos over the one with explicit content.

Now I never said that I was perfect when it came to cursing, but I’m also 18 years old. Growing up I knew that it was wrong to use that type of language around others, so I try to avoid it.

If someone stops and thinks before they speak, they can change people’s perspective of themselves. No one wants to listen to someone who can’t go five minutes without cursing, when someone can gain respect and go just as far or farther just by changing their vocabulary.