Bitch, Bitch, Bitch

"Amber thinks I'm her bitch."

Amber is Rikki's boss. Rikki is a teenage employee who has been gainfully employed for less than a year.

Rikki is not the first employee to use the word bitch in the same sentence as her boss, but it is the generational use of the word that caught my attention.

It is for me, the first  time I've paid attention to the influence of rap and hip-hop music lyrics infiltrating  mainstream corporate patois.

I have been paying closer attention to how different generations use language in the workplace for the past few weeks --ever since I attended Blogher. During the  conference's opening remarks,one of the speakers welcomed everyone  with a greeting  and cheer that included the motivational "F-them!"

Despite my regular and frequent use of the F word, I still try to monitor where I say it. Does that make me a closet F user? Or is it just a generational divide?

I have made a personal and deliberate decision to  never use the F word  to greet a gathering of 300 professionals.  I have deliberately chosen not to write out the F word, the S word and definitely not the C word in my blog.

Even as I write this, it feels a bit puritanical and somewhat hypocritical. But that's where I'm sitting today ,clearly a child of my generation where we say the "F" word, but rarely in front of our parents.

The B word is a different story. While I'm not sure I would include the word bitch in a public presentation to 300 people, bitch is definitely a word I have used to describe a few clients and coworkers.

Not surprisingly, Rikki and I have very different reactions to using the word bitch to describe "servitude". I see it as a dark, violent definition which conjures up pictures of  prison rape and complete humiliation.

Rikki sees it as cool slang.

The bitch conversation came on the heels of a conference call I participated in yesterday about civility, use of language online and in F2F conversations.

The call, hosted by Nancy White and Bill Anderson was a free wheeling discussion exploring our attitudes about the perceived current trend of abrasive commenting on blogs, name calling ,and general in your face language that is a part of our daily lives.

No decisions. Just a sharing of thoughts. A dangling conversation to be continued.

NOTE: Amber and Rikki are pseudonyms.

Comments

[George Lenard]

I hear you. It's better to err on the conservative side, but once you get used to using some of these words for emphasis, it can be tough to stop in polite company. I just used "hell" in a blog comment, but that's a theological concept, at least as I used it.

Fortunately, there are many fairly transparent alternatives (e.g., "screw," "frigging") with more invented every day.

A story:

One day my wife was at a computer in our home office writing a serious business letter. It was my business too, so I looked over her shoulder (if I do that while kids are IM-ing, they key in an immediate "POS," which I figured out means "parent over shoulder," and brings communications to an abrupt halt).

So I'm reading this letter, and several places see the word "dillhole" and the phrase "I hate Emily" [oldest child and big sister to two boys]. Never heard of dillhole, but figure it's a substitute for "a--hole."

Quickly realize Word's quick-correct feature has been hijacked, so "dillhole" is automatically substituted as the "correct spelling" for "George" [me] and "I hate Emily" for "and." The only plausible suspect [middle child, age 12] implausibly flatly denied guilt. I'm a failure at teaching honesty to that kid!

Meanwhile, I've researched "dillhole" on Google, so I can sound really hip. Appears to be among a long list of new slang originated by "Beavis and Butthead." See:

http://www.tvacres.com/languages_silly_beavis.htm

[mrsizer]

I don't think it's generational. Some of us are just more aware of language.

I'd much rather have a colleage use the B word or the F word than stutter out a string of "like"s and "ya' know"s. It's, like, completely useless, like, verbal filler, ya' know. Think, then talk.

Don't even get me started on "less" vs "fewer". Ugh. What do they teach in schools?

[Keith]

I could be wrong but I think "dillhole" is a combination of a--hole and dildo. I certainly used it and heard it used long before Beavis and Butthead, and in fact was surprised when the TV censors let it through. :-)

"Being someone's bitch" is definitely either a reference to a) prostitution and pimps, or b) prison rape, as the post said. Any young person's ignorance of the origins of this phrase doesn't mean it is innocuous.

Also for the record, using any kind of strong language, up to and including "frigging", while speaking in front of 300 people is something I would find totally classless and would definitely cause me to never have that person in front of my clients, ever.

Regards,