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When I was growing up, my parents had an interesting perspective on what we were allowed to watch: some violence was okay but not a lot, nothing with sexual content, and as longs as it didn’t use the “f-word,” the language wasn’t a big deal… as long as we promised not to repeat what we heard.

For the most part, I think it worked out pretty well! With the exception of accidentally saying a swear word to my friend’s mom (not knowing that it was a swear word!), I can’t remember either of my siblings getting in trouble for bad language. Hearing swear words did not seem to have much effect on us.

Over the years I’ve thought a lot about this approach, and even the very idea of “bad” language, and wondered… is it really the best to take with kids?

Now, naturally, I have no intention of actually critiquing my parents, one, because their job was harder than anything I will ever do, but two, because they read this blog and I still want a place to stay over holidays. So, yeah.

But that’s not to say that Br. Tito and I don’t have opinions on the matter. In this week’s episode of Everyday Liminality, we look at the power that language has to both express and shape our world, suggesting that we should be careful how we use our words. Of course, the reason that we think this is probably not what you think, as it has little to do with being polite or avoiding sin…