Has this obnoxious way of speaking become our ‘national tongue’?

Jul 22, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,
“The moral fabric of the community has gone to the gutter. It hurts me so much to hear how young persons speak to one another and more so senior ones in this area. They have no respect at all. They seem not to care who is around and what they say when.” Those were the words of Linden farmer, Baljit, in responding to SN “What the People Say” on problems affecting the Linden community (Monday 22nd June).
But this alarming negative development that we are saddled with, ripping apart the moral fabric of our society is not confined to Linden, but sadly has spread throughout the entire length and breath of this land. And though this obnoxious brutality of the spoken word appears to be a thing that has suddenly infected us like a thief in the night, the truth is, it has been long in the making.
There were signs and symptoms of various forms of undesirables, inattentive happenings shaping and conditioning behaviour pattern, invasion of foreign cultural smut, mainly through the performing arts, other forms of small ills/crimes that gradually fill the gap created by the failings of the Status Quo: unemployment/underemployment, poor wages, poverty etc, and all the other accompanying ills.
Four years ago I was walking behind a bunch of school girls in Georgetown; they all looked cute in their plaid blue/green like uniform, hair well done and neat footwear, my assessment was that none was beyond 14-15 years of age.
But upon hearing their conversation which they were gleefully carrying on at full volume, totally oblivious to anyone – least of all me who was no more than a hand reach behind them. They were at ease, carefree, very expressive and emphatic. Boy! I concluded that these young girls were definitely too experienced for their own good. Obviously the conversation was about sexual encounters. Please believe me dear readers these girls were very bold and graphic in narrating their encounters, using the most coarse language, and all this I heard just between one corner and the next! It struck me that they were not just young women but school girls -beginners.
Well I have heard young men (boys) time and time again and you have got to give it to them, when you hear them then you know that the English language is inadequate! But it matters not what the discussion is really about, this vulgarized behaviour has become standard practice across race, class and age, the comfort and ease in which it is done, as if it commands authority and gives self assurance.
No more does one has to be provoked to anger or pestered beyond tolerance, whereby the use of coarse expression can be understood. No! This development is now the manner of speaking.
Why is it that this new obnoxious way of speaking has become our “national tongue?” Why do not our children speak clean and proper, as children ought to? Try walking behind a bunch of youngsters – in or out of school, boys/girls or both and I’ll bet that your ears will bleed, except if some are coming/going from/to church. They do it so well, with precision, it is as if they are being taught at home and school to behave this way.
Listen to taxi drivers, especially the youngsters, walk around any mini bus park, where one immediately gets the impression that the blue riband event for this competition is on; and the touts will give you a “cussing lesson” of the highest order that will leave you dizzy or pregnant – that is if you have not grown accustom to it by now.
Walk into any police station, or listen to those young policemen sitting in those open back vehicles on patrol, who say, “We are the police, we do as we like”, or one making an arrest or issuing a caution to someone, then you will know that “boat done gaan a fall”. Like the Amerindian woman from the mines said to me, George potato_day gane lang now, this is a different time.”
Frank Fyffe

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Has this obnoxious way of speaking become our ‘national tongue’?

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