Words, Part 4: Disciplined Writing

Blogger's note: "Words" is an ongoing feature in which I take a look at special qualities and misrepresentations of the English language, how much fun it is to play with its words, and why it reigns as one of the hardest languages to master.

A senior at an Indiana high school was disciplined for using the word "fuck" and a variation of that word in a tweet. The message was reported to have been sent at 2:30 in the morning from what the student claimed was a personal account. The school countered the tweet was adorned with its IP address. I don't much care for involving myself in any debate generated from this issue regarding a person's free speech away from an institution or workplace - or in general - vs. the right of an institution or employer to monitor personal behavior outside their immediate control. Both sides have as much merit as they do fault. I'm not the student here, not the student's parents, not the principal or the teacher or the school board or the moral conscience of our society as a whole. What I am is a writer.

An apparent failure in teaching English

composition is not including where a

“suspension” occurs in sentence diagrams.

As I have stated in previous posts, I believe there are no bad words, only bad judgment in how they are used. An individual chooses what comes out of their mouths (Tourette's exclusion noted), or in this case off their fingertips, and the individual should be held accountable accordingly. I am certainly not in a position to determine that level of accountability. I am qualified, though, to look at the incident from a personal perspective in an effort to form an opinion through which I can attempt to rationalize this behavior, thereby continuing my efforts in facilitating part of the healing process that I believe will bring us back together as a nation. Or, I can just do what I normally do in these posts...pick at the scab. But before I dig in a nail, here's the student's tweet in its original dispatch:

(Warning: The following quote contains some graphic fucking language.)

"Fuck is one of those fucking words you can fucking put anywhere in 

a fucking sentence and it still fucking makes sense."

My initial reaction was one of mild shock. I always thought an -ing word not being used as a verb in the present participle tense was always a descriptive modifier in the form of an adjective preceding the noun, and never used as an adverb in the form of an intensifier preceding the verb.

Additionally, I took exception to the accuracy of the statement that putting the word "fuck" anywhere in a sentence maintains the sentence's sensibility. One must certainly determine in what form the word will be used. In the case of its use as a verb, verb tense must be considered - present, past or future -, as well as the perfect, progressive and perfect-progressive forms of the aforementioned tenses. And in choosing the correct form of the word (e.g., verb, noun, adjective), it should be noted that the application of the word chosen may not conform to the established rules of grammar.

For example, not all prepositional phrases will absorb the -ing form of the word. Prepositions functioning as adjectives or adverbs are already modifying the noun or verb, and therefore the addition of the word would confuse not only the structure of the sentence, but also its meaning.

Example 1: Look at the car with the red racing stripe.

In the sentence above, the prepositional phrase (in italics) is modifying the noun "car." Placing the word "fucking" between "car" and the preposition "with" would be grammatically incorrect. It would be acceptable to place the word before "car," or within the prepositional phrase before "red" or "racing." But not between "racing" and "stripe." The reason for this being "racing stripe" is considered an open compound word, meaning the two words together, although written separately, express a single idea. Any separation of the two words by introducing another word would make the sentence awkward. (Go ahead, try it).

The same holds true when a prepositional phrase functions as an adverb:

Example 2: The light wouldn't work despite changing the light bulb.

Here, as in the first example, the structure of the sentence is unacceptable with the separation of the prepositional phrase from the rest of the sentence. An allowance can be made elsewhere in the sentence, with the exception of splitting "light" and "bulb," which is another open compound.

It should be noted, however, that not all prepositional phrases are restrictive. There is a third type of prepositional phrase in which the words function as nouns even though they aren't themselves nouns. These are called nominals, and can be found when used in conjunction with the verb "to be."

Example 3: The car is under the big tree.

As you can see in this example, "under" is the preposition that acts as the nominal to the verb "is." Separation of the prepositional phrase from the rest of the sentence by inserting the word "fucking" before the preposition, while not necessarily grammatically correct, does not alter the meaning of the sentence other than in its tone. It should be noted, though, that normally an -ing word following the "to be" verb creates a continuous verb, as would be the case if the sentence read "...is idling under..." The use of the word "fucking" to separate "is under" would be grammatically correct if you, say, changed "car" to "couple" and changed "is" to its present indicative plural form "are." Otherwise, its only application is to convey attitude.

For a tweet, I have to admit it's one of the more complete expressions I've read in this age when people rely on communication using cryptic, abbreviated texts with character limitations - both in number of letters and personality. Sure, the student needs to be held accountable for his actions, whatever those actions are determined to be. But to his credit, he 1) expressed a thought 2) in a structured format 3) that was not directed toward another person or culture in a demeaning manner 4) within the limited space provided (121 characters out of 144 allowed) 5) using no abbreviated terminology. That's worthy of at least a B+ with a smiley face.

Again, without having all of the facts in front of me regarding what actually occurred in this tweet incident, it's difficult for me to state with certainty who crossed the line. Regardless of the forum in which the sentence was presented, it could have been written better. In my opinion, the school only addressed part of the problem by suspending the student. If schools feels obligated to take corrective action against students when students aren't seated within their hallowed halls, then schools should not limit themselves to only those acts, actions or activities they feel will bring shame upon their institution. In this case, they also could have taken the student aside to discuss what was written and demonstrate options available to help express the idea in a more grammatically fundamental manner.

Because the education process is a discipline as much as the discipline process is an education.