Being called a "Trucker-mouth" and why I embrace swear words.
Free-write
Recently, in a podcast interview about my book “The Road Unpaved”, the interviewer called me (referring to my book) a “trucker-mouth". I have to admit, I felt a tinge of defensiveness. If you were to ask any of my friends and those closely connected to me, they would completely disagree and even believe this podcaster was talking about the wrong Risa.
In my book, I do use the occasional f-bomb…maybe more than I would if I were speaking in conversation. But when you condense your life into 228 pages, and you’re noting the most crappy moments, there’s bound to be an overall emphasis on the story. And for me in that time of my life, hell yeah there was a lot of swearing.
Now bear with me, let’s take the word “promise”. Three different definitions turned up in my initial google search. Let’s take it a step further by saying I imagine it may hold many more different meanings to different individuals. The word “promise” may have more weight to it for one person and not so much for another.
I feel the same way when it comes to the f-bomb, it is simply a word that someone made up and assigned a definition to. Just like the word “promise”, the f-word can also have multiple meanings, and I imagine the weight of it can vary from individual to individual. But because someone, somewhere, some time ago, decided it was a “bad word”, it comes with negative connotation. For me, not at all. F*** is a word that can stress my point, a certain moment or situation.
I also feel that swear words can actually add much humor to a scenario. I’ve been surrounded by others when sharing a story and to stress my point, I would use a cuss word and the group would erupt in laughter.
Another time, I wrapped up a presentation with one closing sentence from my book to an audience of medical professionals, which included the F-word to stress my point. It had a massive impact on my audience and listeners, allowing them to reflect on the magnitude of my circumstance. It was extremely well-received.
In closing, words are words, despite their assigned definitions they can hold very different meanings for each of us as individuals.
F*** yeah!