My First-Born Son

26 Letters

Language.

Foul language, foreign language, body language.

"Communication of thoughts and feelings through a system of arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds, gestures, or written symbols."

Whatever the fuck that means.

It's all inadequate; feeble, really, when you think about it. In English we have 26 characters mashed together into combinations that are supposed to represent everything - every object, every distance, every thought - every emotion, sensation, color, sound - every vein of every leaf, every crest of every wave, every sea creature, mammal, alien creature imagined or real. EVERYTHING that ever was, is and will be.

That's a lot to ask from 26 letters. But it's what we have, so it's what we use.

As for what we will teach Jack the one topic that seems to come up most often is swearing. I have to admit I'm torn. As anyone who knows me can imagine, I believe words have massive power (for both good and evil) so they must be wielded with caution and as much precision as possible.

At the same time, I'm not particularly enamored of the parochial and hypocritically pious nature of American society and am just as inclined as anyone (more inclined) to say fuck-all in front of anyone I goddamn well please.

I'm not going to encourage it, but I don't plan on making a big deal out of it the first time Jack says 'shit' in front of grandma or 'fuck' in front of the neighbors. If he's a perceptive kid he'll learn how and when to use it, just like you and me and millions of other verbally responsible adults.

Crossover post.