In the immortal rooting tooting words of
Yosemite Sam . . . “Dagnabbit!”
Dagnabbit! Dagnabbit! Dagnabbit!
I recently was two stories about swearing in the United States. Both dealt with ranking the states by who swore the most on social media posts, thus who swore the most. One was based on Reddit. Reddit is a social news aggregator—a mixture of article links and discussion platform. Basically, topics and headlines are posted that are open to discussion by the readers. The other was based on what was once known as Twitter and now is simply “X”. The idea behind “X” is for people to post content to create public conversations. Apparently swearing is a big part of both platforms. Counting the number of swear words and the state from which the poster was from gave the pollsters the method to rank the states. The more words of profanity, the higher the state ranked.
According to the poll based on Reddit, Texas was the state that swore the most with an average of seven words of profanity per post. Texas was followed by Ohio, Florida, Tennessee, Missouri, Iowa, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Idaho. Of course, this being a poll, it doesn’t always line up with other polls using similar statistics. Another poll that used Reddit posts came up with a different ranking of the states with the worse potty mouth . . . the top ten states, from top to bottom were: Texas, Connecticut, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Florida, New Jersey, Maine, Ohio, North Carolina, and Iowa. Montana was way down the list at number 44.
The poll based on “X” had Maryland swearing the most (66.3) followed by Louisiana (61.7), Georgia (57.4), Virginia (47.6), Ohio (47.3), Mississippi (45.9), Pennsylvania (45.7), Nevada (45.5), New Jersey (45.5), and Michigan (45.3). In this poll Montana finished in 39th place with a 29.2 score. What the . . . !
Dagnabbit! Montana is better than that! My experience is that Montanans can swear with the best of them. I’ve heard it.
I noticed that there were some states that were in the top ten in all the polls . . . Texas, Ohio, Florida, New Jersey, and Iowa were all listed more than once in the top ten of swearing states. I can see Texas, Ohio, Florida, and New Jersey being at the top of the rankings . . . I have been to those states and if I had to live there, I would swear too. Iowa surprised me. I have lived there too, but it wasn’t bad enough to make me swear . . . maybe an occasional curse word, but constant swearing that would put it in the top ten . . . naw. Shoot! Most of my life, no matter where I lived, Texas has always made me swear, so I imagine if I lived there, I’d be swearing all the time. You know Texans. Ohio thinks highly of itself, is opinionated, and now has J.D. Vance as the Orange One’ vice-presidential running mate . . . that alone can make anyone swear . . . a lot. Florida . . . crowded with lots of us old people, crazy politics, and just a lot of plain old weirdness. Yup, swearing. New Jersey, sorry if this is being stereotypical, but it is the land of gangsters, urban dwellers, crime and despite being called the “Garden State” is dismal . . . swear-worthy.
I would not disagree that any of those states do not deserve their ranking . . . they earned it. At the same time, how did Montana rank so low when it comes to swearing. I have heard a lot of swearing the past couple of weeks as we have been in a gripping heatwave strangling us to death. I have heard it when we are in the nine months of winter freezing our southern extremities off. I have heard it whenever the University of Montana plays Montana State University in any sport, but especially football. I have heard it when the governor blatantly raised property taxes across the state except for him and his rich friends . . . his neighbors were especially swearing. I have heard it when May rolls around and lasting until the last tourist leaves in late September. Politics create a lot of swearing in Montana . . . even in years that there is no election.
Swearing, in my estimation, is woven into the fabric of who we are as a state and as Montanans. Hey, this is the “wild west” . . . except when John Wayne is portraying the “west” (no swearing allowed) . . . as rough and violent as the “wild west” was, I am certain that there was swearing. As I said earlier, I have experienced it, witnessed it, and even taken part in it. Knowing this, I am floored that Montana ranked so low when it came to swearing. We are better than the bottom ten.
Dagnabbit! We cannot sit back and allow our reputation as a rough and tumble state for hard living be soiled as being some sort of pious pansies. We are better (or is it worse) than that. We can cuss. We can swear. We can rant. We can rave. And we can do it with the best of them. Sit down those beers and show America what we can do. We are Montanans, dagnabbit! Think about it . . . Texas, Ohio, Florida, New Jersey, and Iowa . . . better than Montana! That alone should ramp up the swearing.
Dagnabbit! Let’s nip this in the bud and claim our rightful place among the best in the nation. Montana, we can swear with the best of them. Let’s show them what we are made with. Dagnabbit!
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