A Southern Profanity
928 words • 7.1 minutes
When I was growing up, I never heard my parents use profanity—never once. It just wasn’t used in our household and I can hardly imagine the trouble that would have been in store for me had I uttered foul oaths in front of any of my elders… I doubt I would be here today to talk about it!
Nor did I hear many adults use it as most often back in the 1960’s and 70’s they watched their language around children. People used to care about their reputations… alas those were the days!
Yet I am not a saint and I actually believe that adding a little salt and pepper to certain discussions can season them in just the right way. Discretion is the key here—for why would I have any interest in what you are saying if you are just swearing for swearing’s sake?
Sadly, in 2019 this all seems to be forgotten. People actually pride themselves on having a potty mouth and they feel that they are just being “authentic” by saying whatever comes to mind.
No surprise, I guess. It is just a manifestation of selfishness and selfish people rarely think that others might not want to hear their vulgar diatribes. It was around the year 2000 when substituting intelligent speech with profanity gained traction and our culture has not been the same since.
This, of course, is a fool’s errand. How is one being authentic if we cannot determine what they are trying to say? In these cases, profanity masks authenticity instead of revealing it.
Ah, but exceptions are the beautiful part of life and in the American South we find the most remarkable use of just a single swear word. I call it the Southern Damn and long may it live among English speakers.
We’re quickly
losing our regional dialects
America is quickly losing its distinct regional accents. All the travel that we do and the omnipresence of media simply wears away the historical differences in speech in the United States. Sure, we still have that strong New England accent one hears in Boston and the Jake Elwood (remember the Blues Brothers?) style of Chicago patter, but who knows if these will survive in a couple of generations.
Go to the South however, and you will still hear a very pronounced accent—one that varies from state to state, from Virginia to Mississippi, but it is easy to recognize and this is the home of the Southern Damn.
The Southern Damn is a linguistic multi-purpose tool. In the right hands it is not only smooth as smoked hickory, but can take on 1001 meanings. It can be used to express amazement, bewilderment, surprise, appreciation, excitement, condemnation, or even inclusiveness. Quite simply it can do it all.
The first thing that one will notice about the Southern Damn is that it is often slightly aspirated—as if the D is almost silent. Have you ever noticed how the French do not pronounce the H in front of words such as here, hour, or honfleur? They aspirate it so that is not really heard. This is exactly what Southerners often do when the drop the D in damn. It is still there, but by softening it the speaker actually gives more power to the word.
I once heard a Southerner relate his experience of having seen multiple cars flip over during a race at Alabama’s Talladega Motor Speedway. “Damn” was 90 percent of the description he provided and yet oddly it was enough. One word, used as a complete sentence but in a minimalist way, sketched out all the drama that was inherent in the crash.
When things are bad, the “fit-all” word Southern Damn covers any situation not to the speaker’s satisfaction. “Damn” is the go-to word when everything is going bad but no ill will is meant to any person—it’s just that it is all bad.
Yet by no means is this damn always meant in a negative way—not by a long shot for damn can be surprisingly positive and even inclusive when it cements a bond among those sharing a common experience. Stuck in a massive traffic jam in Atlanta? A “damn” would be spoken among the drivers who are undergoing the mass frustration. Watching a violent thunderstorm? The “damn” would be used to express the awe of nature’s power among those who are seeing it first-hand.
I encourage the reader to listen carefully for it. Unfortunately, there are no good YouTube videos that I can provide as examples and so it has to be witnessed first-hand. I think the reason for this is that the Southern Damn has just been part and parcel of Southern culture and speech for so long that the inhabitants of the South just don’t notice it—it might be like describing snow to someone in Switzerland.
I am glad that we still have these little gems in the English language—these flexible and all-purpose words that serve as a linguistic lubricant for any and all conversations. So, whether it is shortened to the quick ’amn or drawn out to the long dayuuum, may it long live on in Southern culture and speech!
Average Always,
It is indeed a remarkably versatile word here in the South. I’m thinking of the Southern-born expression of excitement “hot damn!” One doesn’t surpass that level of enthusiasm often.
Early in my Army career I learned (in Germany, oddly) another highly versatile word that had been imported from Korea for Soldiers’ use: kimchi. At that point I had never before encountered the word and had no idea that four decades hence I would include a bit of the spicy cabbage delight at almost every evening meal!
GI’s had taken to this word with a passion, and used it as many parts of speech. It is used as a noun, as in “Captain, what is this kimchi your presenting as a “reason” for an exception to policy?” Better, in my mind, is its use as an adjective; “Sergeant, have you ever seen such a kimchi excuse for boot shining in all your life?” But my all time favorite came from my company commander using it as a verb while telling me “Lieutenant, I need you to kimchi me up a memo to the battalion safety officer on this hazard you’ve got there in your shop!”
Though I was unfamiliar with the word, in such cases as these it required no defining!
Fitz – that is part of the fun of language in that it changes and is so fungible that it can be employed in so many ways. Your example of kimchi shows how it can assume the duty of a noun, adjective, or verb. Google is another example of that fungibility. Cool stuff to those of us who are word geeks!