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/Sf 9 /?t (/e Swearing has hit a low point By Laden Coleman Maybe you've noticed what hap pens right after a pro football player drops an easy pass, misses a sure kick, or fumbles the ball six yards short of the goal line. With vehement gestures, the frustrated player utters a few choice syllables > ("shucks," "aw, shoot," "heck fire") with body-shaking force. We know, of course, that those aren't really the exact words used by players on such occasions. But, even if 1 knew them, they probably couldn't be printed. Though swearing seems to be as popular ai ever, promoted even by presidents (remember Truman's colorful vocabulary and Nixon's w "expletives deleted"?), it does seem to have become sadly cor rupted in our day. Today's swearing is so. ..well, so biological. It won't hold a candle to the great theological swearing of our English ancestors. "By the Splendor of God," William the Conqueror used to say, when the situation called for a strong oath. His son swore by "St. Luke's face." Henry II swore by God's I eyes, and Richard III by St. Paul. In Elizabethan England, swear ing was by no means confined to Things That Matter the more disreputable elements of society. Queen Bess herself, it was said, could make "cuss-words sizzle like apples in an oven." And, reflec ting the fashion of this day, William Shakespeare had Hotspur, in King Henry IV, rebuke his wife for using pale language. "Swear me, Kate," Hotspur exhorted, "like a lady as thou art, a good mouth-filling oath, and leave 'in sooth'...To velvet' guards and Sunday -citizens." Contemporary swearing shows no imagination. Compare today's vulgar monosyllables with a swashbuckling oath like this one: "By the bones of St. Michael! I will spit thee to thy cringing giz zard!" That kind of swearing went out of style with the old-fashioned cutlass. Modern firearms don't leave a fellow enough time to say that many words. The Puritan prohibition of the use of the names of deity in oaths has produced a whole vocabulary of insipid substitutes in the American swearing vocabulary: "gee," "gee whillikins," "gee whiz," "jeez," "Jiminy Christmas," "cripes," "criminy," "lawdy," "law stakes," and that hangover from an era gone by, "jeepers creepers." (Can you im agine Franco Harris using one of those?) In spite of the fact that the im pulse to swear is held in check by religious prohibition and social custom, the habit still flourishes, allbeit, as pointed out earlier, in a degenerate state. (Some believe the practice has been perpetuated more by the game of golf than by any other modern activity). What is needed today, some observers contend, is a whole new vocabulary which will be neither ir reverent nor obscene. One newspaper columnist pro posed just this when he wrote, "Am going to think me up some innocent new cuss words to yell out during double feature movies." Then he proposed, as examples, " Abradembazoolum ! Dan tiphonesabelum! Vrum! Zibroki pides!" The difference between getting ahead and just getting by. Methodist College. u Classic educational principles, blended with management techniques and basic technological information demanded by your future The differ ence is Methodist College. Major fields of study include: Accounting. Art, Biology, Business Admin " istration. Chemistry, Computer Science, Elementary Teacher Education, English, French, History, Management/ Psychology, Mathematics, Music, Physical Education, Political Science, Psycho logy, Religion, Religious ? Education, Science, Social Work and Sociology MfTHOMST COUBOi Office of Admissions Box HK Fayettevllle, NC 26301 919488-7110 At Methodist College, you are known by name ?not by just a number. This sense of individuality builds self-confidence The most important quali fication for any career There's a life style difference at Methodist College, too Resident students enjoy spacious living accommodations in air-conditioned dormito ries. You have all the comforts of home? plus! Social, recreational, sports and learning facilities are all a short walk away. Find out all about the differences? close to home. At Methodist College Methodist College does not clscnmt nate on the basis of 'ace sex, color, national or ethrwc origin or religious denomination m the adrmmstratori of us educational policies, scholarships and loan programs. athH)cs.and other College administered programs A comprehensive education for a competitive world. Please send your book called Here's Your Choice I want all the answers to my college questions Name Telephone Number A r Parents' Name , High School City i State Zip I will graduate from high school (date) Opinions Wilson was a president who knew North Carolina By Cliff Blue WOODROW WILSON. ..For 50-years or more following the end of the Civil War, the South failed to get much consideration, and most people could understand why. It lost out in the War Be tween the States! Woodrow Wilson was the first president to be elected from the South, and when elected he was serving as governor of New Jersey, although bom in Virginia, the son of a Presbyterian minister who moved to Augusta, Georgia, where he served as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church. Wilson's dad, the Rev. Joseph Ruggles Wilson, a Presbyterian minister who answered a call to Virginia, which made Woodrow Wilson, a native born southerner. His dad got a call to Augusta and later to Columbia, South Carolina. Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born December 28, 18S6. His dad and mother, moved to Columbia where his dad became Professor of the Southern Presbyterian Theological Seminary. In 1873, at the age of 17, Tom my matriculated at Davidson Col lege in North Carolina. His father was a trustee, and it was the favored Presbyterian College of the Carolinas. At Davidson his professor asked: "What is calves' meat when served at the table?" "Mutton," he answered amid laughter, and he was called "Mon sieur Mouton" as long as he re mained at Davidson. "Thomas" Wilson soon drop ped the name of "Thomas" and People and Issues took his middle name, "Woodrow," and was soon called Woodrow Wilson. At the White House he was glad to talk over old times with David son students. "He was extremely handsome, too, in those days, and many were the girls who cast ad miring glances at him. They used to cheer him on the baseball field. He was a good batter and could hit the ball a hefty cloust." He is remembered in Wilm ington by characteristic activities ? as he walked into the church with his mother, as he strolled the streets with his father, as he talked to sailors on the water front, as he played short-stop on the neighborhood baseball team and as he swam in the Cape Fear at the foot of Dock Street. The River and the ships fascinated the youth. ..His father saw that he was meant for letters ar.d teaching and politics and set his foot down upon a naval career. When the Navy lost Tommy Wilson as a future Admiral, it gained in 1913 a commander-in chief whose marvelous grasp of naval matters made him a real leader of the men who go down to the sea in ships. But Tommy is chiefly remem bered in Wilmington as the first person who owned and rode a bicycle in North Carolina, and rode it with calm indifference to the astonishment caused by the then unique method of locomo tion. Many still remember mother and son, during the vacation of the lat ter, as they walked slowly along the street late in the afternoons, the mother leaning heavily upon the arm of her son. The mother was not to live long, and the son, soon to go to Princeton resolved to bear no other given name than that of his mother. He shortly dropped "Tommy." Woodrow Wilson was one of 20 young men from the South to matriculate at Princeton in September, 1875. Woodrow Wilson studied law at the Universi ty of Virginia, took his degree at Johns Hopkins, was President of Princeton University, Governor of New Jersey before becoming Presi dent of the United States. Woodrow Wilson had a great background to serve as President of the United States, and I think he was right in attempting to follow through with the League of Na tions. OTHER SOUTHERNERS ... Lyndon B. Johnson was the next president to occupy the White House. While Johnson tried to be a westerner to win reelection, he was somewhat between a Southerner and a Westerner, and Jimmy Carter was the first real President from the South follow ing the Civil War. WORLD WAR II. ..While Wilson hoped that World War I would end all wars, it didn't! World War II was the biggest and most disastrous of all wars in history! Deficit makes government one of 'wolves over sheep' By Richard A. Viguerie More than 962 federal programs, costing more thanjJ^XJ billion a year. A federal budget of $848 billion, plus nearly a trillion dollars a year in spending that does not appear on the budget. A deficit of $450 billion, more than twice as large as we have been told. Those are some of the outrages discovered by President Reagan's commission on waste in the federal government. Unless something is done to reverse the growth of government, the prospect is one of a national debt growing until the economy collapses. The report of the Grace Com mission details the twilight world of Congress and the bureaucracy, in which the only question asked is Who benefits? Names were deleted from the final draft, but the identi ty of some offenders is obvious ? It was Senator Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) who forced Am trak to retain the Cardinal train that runs through his state, even though it loses $10 million a year. It was Senator Robert Dole (R-Kansas) who "angrily" blocked a plan to transfer employees of the PHONE FOR FOOD Pith. Shrimp. BBQ, Chick* n . . . SPECIALS DAILY 875-5752 Wagon Wheel Restaurant Department of Housing and Ur ^an MMT Topeka to " Kansas City,~KTi'ssourf.' It was Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) who stopped the Defense Department from seeking competitive bids on shipments of its employees' household goods in Alaska and Hawaii. In all, some 100 Congressmen, including the Speaker of the House and the Republican leader of the Senate, were named in the original draft of the report. How did the federal government become the bloated, extravagant, inefficient monster it is today? The answer lies in the altered relation ship between the people and their government. It took the government 175 years for its annual budget to reach $100 billion, in 1962. It then took only nine years for the budget to top $200 billion. Four years later, in 1975, it hit $300 billion and two years later $400 billion. In 1980, it went over $600 billion, and spending for fiscal 1984 will be close to $900 billion. The government now consumes about one-quarter of the Gross National Product (which itself in cludes government spending). With state and local taxation figured in, the government's share approaches 40?7o. Many of us hoped and believed that under the Reagan Administra tis*, federal social spending would decrease, but in fact it has increas ed. Housing aid is up 75% under Reagan, food stanps up 32%, Medicare up 63%, Social Security up 44%. One type of social spending, direct payments to individuals, now consumes 42% of the budget, compared to only 29% for defense. Those who would balance the budget by cutting defense overlook the fact that defense spending as a portion of the budget has been cut in half in the last 20 years. During the first three years of the Reagan Administration, state and local spending increased 27%, but federal spending ballooned an incredible 41%. Why is even a Ronald Reagan, who complained about Big Government for nearly 30 years before his election, unable to do anything about the size of government? Because the special interests that feed off the taxpayer have had years to build a well-oiled public relations machine, to install like minded individuals in important positions in the news media, on Congressional staffs, and deep in side the bureaucracy. Attempts to restrain government are reported by the media as attacks on poor people, or minorities, or some other group of "victims." 81 IRS NO VIRAYES ? Heritage Federal, a leader in retirement planning, can help you plan for a secure future while taking advantage of tax savings through an Individual Retirement Account. Act now for 1983 tax year. Come by any Heritage Federal office or call for more details. //r.Ri i\0)i. Federal Savings and Loan Association RAEFORD. 113 Campus Avenue 875 5061
The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.)
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