Second Post of the Day

Our latest production lost an actress because her job scheduled a business trip right in the middle of the performance. We lost a possible replacement because she wasn't comfortable with all the profanity.

The other day I was discussing the production with our sound/music guru, and he expressed astonishment that someone would drop out of the show because she was expected to swear onstage. "I understand if you don't want to talk that way in your personal life, but it's not like these words will hurt you!" I responded that once upon I time I firmly believed that these words do hurt users and hearers; cursing was like maliciously sneezing on people. I had a hygienic attitude to profanity; "dirty" words were actually dirty. No doubt our lost actress shares this view. For those of you who don't understand why some people are SO very upset by cussin', that's why. For some of us Calvinist types there's a real "compulsive hand washing" attitude about Sin, and Dirty Words really are Dirty.