Second languages are funny. You can cuss in them and not feel like you're cussing. The offensive taste of many Sesotho words has not yet been ingrained in me, so there have been times when I've said some nasty things that I didn't know were so nasty at the time. My words offended people unintentionally because I literally didn’t know what I was saying. And conversely, much of the sting has been removed from four-letter words in English for me as well. I cuss more these days when I think aloud to myself in English while in my house. I cuss more when speaking to other Americans here than I ever did back home. I even cuss a bit when speaking English to Basotho. It's like, since they don't really know the weight of these bad words, I don't feel it either.
I nicknamed one of my students Shitfoot the other day. Every time we went rock climbing he seemed to step in a pile of dung. Even when falling off a rock, he’d land in crap without exception. Giving him this nickname didn't feel inappropriate to me as it surely would have if all this was happening back home in America. Back home, I would never have condoned other kids calling him that, let alone give him the name myself.
On the other side, last week I went on a drive with my principal to buy some things in a shop in a village a few miles away. 'Me 'Matsita is in her fifties, small, and gently polite. I honestly thought she was a sweet little nun the first time I met her, since many schools in Lesotho are run by sweet little nuns.
At the shop we saw one of our former students and I commented, "I wonder if he's working these days or what."
"He's fucked up," she said. "I think he's just drinking."
Wow. That was just a serious word she uttered, I thought. My image of her instantly became grittier. But just as soon I realized that she had no idea how serious that f-word was. How could she? And where did she learn it anyhow? Who is teaching my middle-aged principal these bad English words? She shouldn't be hanging out with them anymore.