In defense of swearing

But they dont taste like chicken.

 

Of course not. They taste like bunny

 

Not when they take out your entire crop of newly-germinated garden peas they're not! Or when they eat all the one-year raspberry canes, thorns and all, so you get no raspberries the following year! Bunnies are worse than gophers! Death to all bunnies!

A deer will walk diagonally through your garden taking a bite or two out of each row. But bunnies will walk down a row and take out an entire crop. Long live Elmer Fudd!

 

Of course you know this means war!!!!!!!!1

 

Of course you know this means war!!!!

 

In cartoons, Sylvester never catches Tweety Bird. In real life, however, cats are quite good bird catchers. In the cartoons, Elmer never gets Bugs Bunny, but in real life, the Elmer Fudds of the world eat rabbit stew every night. Normally I'm opposed to killing animals, and I still do not eat meat or fowl. But I grant a dispensation to hunters of bunnies. Lock and load, Elmer! Every time you blow a bunny away, you put a smile on the face of a vegetable gardner.

 

Do they sell fencing wire and chicken wire over there in Spokane?

There are some little fences here used to control rabbit movements.
Reduces the need for gardeners to swear.
[imglink]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/Rabbit_proof_fence_Western_australia.jpg/329px-Rabbit_proof_fence_Western_australia.jpg[/imglink]
[imglink]http://blogs.ksbe.edu/lenelson/files/2009/05/rabbit-proof-fence-000876d.jpg[/imglink]

 

:focus:

The great Australian adjective "bloody" is used by so many people in their communication that nobody here gets upset when it is used, but elsewhere, it is considered an extremely offensive swear word.

I don't think using that word would take much pain away from me, but there some other words that might help.

Actually, "bunny" is not so off-topic. If we made this a real swear word, I could take the moral high ground and demand my daughter get rid of those three offensive animals that she has as pets.

 

I don't have a garden here. It was in North Dakota where I had a 1/4 acre garden. I ended up settling on electric fence, but it's a lot of work to maintain because every week or so the fence must be taken down so the ground can be tilled, and then the fence put back up. 400 feet of two-wire electric fence is a lot of work to maintain. One year the neighbor's two dogs showed up regularly. The damage they did digging was minimal, and they cleared out the rabbits. But then the neighbor trained them to stay home. Wire netting fence was even more work, and heavier and harder to manage.

 

:focus:

The celebrated American author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka
"Mark Twain," had much to say about the efficacy of swearing, to him
a necessary defense in dealing with the vagaries of life. A few
examples:

The idea that no gentleman ever swears is all wrong. He can swear
and still be a gentleman if he does it in a nice and benevolent and
affectionate way.

- Private and Public Morals speech, 1906

When angry count four; when very angry, swear.

- Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

There ought to be a room in every house to swear in. It's dangerous to
have to repress an emotion like that...
Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate
circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.

- Mark Twain, a Biography

My personal favorite:

"...quadrilateral, astronomical, incandescent son-of-a-bitch."
- Letter to W. D. Howells, (attacking an enemy)



When you're mad, count four; when you're very mad, swear! But most
of us don't wait to count four! at least I don't!

- quoted in A Lifetime with Mark Twain: The Memories of Katy Leary


The spirit of wrath and not the words--is the sin; and the spirit of
wrath is cursing. We begin to swear before we can talk.

- Following the Equator



Let us swear while we may, for in Heaven it will not be allowed...
If I cannot swear in heaven I shall not stay there.

- Notebook, 1898



For more reading, this is a reasonable start:

Mark Twain and the Art of Swearing

 

Doesn't bother us Americans at all. We might look at you funny if you used it but then again, we'd probably be prepared the moment we hear English spoken w/a non-"American" accent.

It's almost like a flashing green traffic light. Doesn't mean anything to us but there are apparently different meanings in Canada, depending on the province.

 

For that reason alone, I would never ride a bicycle, or be a pedestrian, in Winnipeg

 

No phukin way I'm moving there. :blink:

 

You folks are having problems with grow ops and Asian gangs, but we still have a worse crime problem here

 

Our local crime rate is actually dropping, which is a nice change. There are more gangs than 'Asian', but for the most part they seem to be shooting only each other.

 

I saw this on CBC when it first aired

Asian gangs pose major threat, police report says

Has anything changed?