Foul Language

For years, my children have been fascinated with foul language. Firstborn has made it his business to learn all cuss words possible in as many languages to which he can have access. Lastborn waits patiently for me to let one slip while driving so that he can tell me that I owe him 25 cents. Not that I pay him, but he seems to have a special kind of hearing for cuss words that he doesn't have for instructions, requests, or warnings from his mother.

They are also fascinated with the idea that radio and TV beep out cuss words. For a while, Firstborn would speckle his speech with an occasional "beep" as if he were using foul language and being beeped by the network. This lead Lasborn to assume that the word "beep" was actually a cuss word of its own.

I thought he was over this misunderstanding until I heard him talking on the phone the other day. He was calling his best friend to invite him to go swimming today. All I heard was "Are you cussing at me?"

So I asked him what had happened. He said that his friend wasn't home and the answering machine had beeped at him, so he asked if it was cussing at him.

"So that was your message?" I asked.
"You mean it recorded that ?" He answered.

So now the neighbors have a recording of Lastborn saying, "Are you cussing at me?" and they have no idea what that is supposed to mean.