Oh, buttercups!

My paternal grandmother did not curse, she would go only so far as to say “fiddlesticks” (she was a musician). My maternal grandmother would say “criminy” when extremely annoyed but she always looked as if she regretted saying that word of uncertain origin but which maybe derives from Christ (she was Catholic). My father remained silent unless provoked to the level of a hammer to the thumb upon which he would mutter “damn” under his breath, and look around to see if any children were present. My mother felt no need for self-control and cursed at will, but by 21st century standards her scatological expletives were mild.

I cursed mildly and briefly in my early twenties when I realized that all someone had to do to make me go away was to curse, I would not be party to it. I soon realized that cursing brought me down to a base level, so I laid off cursing. Now as I slide up against age seventy, I found myself cursing along with the alternative media and even with the mainstream media who occasionally fire out a doozy now and then. So I have severely reduced my consumption of news to avoid its pernicious influence, at least while I am retraining myself. (I did write letters first asking several prominent figures to stop cursing and surprisingly many did better, but not good enough.)

For now, because I do not want to be a rude, old lady, I intend to substitute flowers for curses. For example, in my opinion a person behaving badly is full of petunias. Something irksome can just go to azaleas. Buttercups, this is a good idea!

Caption: Buttercups, by Annmarie Throckmorton 2016.