Guest Post: A World Full Of Cusses

Last week I went to my elder sister house to spend the weekend. It had been a while… a year or so. I was very happy hanging out with her hubby and her kids: a four year old boy and a six year old girl. Tommy i.e. the boy, short for Thomas had changed a lot or rather improved. I say this because the last time I came around, I remember sitting in the living room one day like that, watching TV and keeping my eyes on the kids who were playing, when I heard Tommy cry out when I looked at him, he was telling Trisha, short for Patricia, “Waka” as he cried. I scolded him for doing such while putting on my “Nawa for children of nowadays” face. When my sis came back, I told her what I had noticed abi saw (well, if I was in their shoes I would have called myself an Amebo uncle, but I wasn’t) and she felt bad. She said she had tried to stop him but he wouldn’t agree. She didn’t even know where he picked up the dirty habit from. She said he seemed to have a “Waka” for everything. If you don’t give him something “Waka”, give him something he didn’t want “Waka” and so on.

Now this got me really thinking, what’s up with this cussing sef? I totally believe it when people say that one of the first thing a person learns in any language is how to cuss, because nearly if not every person who knows how and when to say “Sannu” and also knows how and when to say “Waka” and maybe even “Shegiya” “Barrawo”. Nearly everybody who knows “Kedu”, also knows how to say “Onyeoshi”“Onyeara”“Ole buruku”“Ori é kòpe ” that sort of a thing…I don’t know how or why but it somehow comes natural(e easy to learn bad thing, moreover, bad thing na im sweet pass).
While my sis went ahead to blame Tommy’s cussing on the bad things he picked in school…which might have been the case… but it is not always so and let me add that, if you think that kids that say “Waka” are those in kpakororo schools, I would like to assure you that they don’t say such in Ajebuta schools, instead they say “Fcuk You”& “ Scuk ballz”…and now back to it, where was I? Okay, not school alone but even in the family.
If you are in a family where whenever the parents get mad at a kid, they call the kid an idiot, a mumu, a fool…I even heard one of my friends mum call her son a pathetic numbskull…hehe…so you see, there is no reason as to why the kid shouldn’t cuss in school and thus teach others who don’t have any form of cussing in their house.
Well, the only thing that amuses me about cussing in the family would be in some northern homes where one might see a mother telling a child “Ubanka”or “Waka” or go all the way and say: “Walahi, zen chi ubanka fa” which could be literally translated into “Seriously, I would eat your father o” but actually could mean “You are messing with me ehn, I just might mess you up o” or something even vulgar and uglier.
One other thing I know which is really increasing the way people cuss, this time particularly young people, would be screens and headphones…i.e. what they see and hear. Hip hop/western movement puts out a strong need for those interested (which is a lot) in them to want to cuss and not take such cuss words as strong as they really are. To them words like “Mara4ka”and “sonovabiach” are just like any everyday word like “come” and “go”. I remember chatting with a fine girl on 2go and she said she loved hanging out with her “bitches” and when I tried to tell her that it wasn’t an appropriate way to speak, what did she do?…Tell me: “Fcuk off dawg” and sharply removed me from her friends list.
No doubt, TV is really playing its own part and even Tommy has learnt from it. Now four years old, when I go visiting and get him giving someone the “Waka”, he gives me an innocent look and turns it to waving his hands, and when I hear him say it, he quickly turns it into shakira’s song: …waka, waka eh ehh; zamina mina  zankelewa…and in my mind, I go like WTF…oops my bad.

3 COMMENTS

  1. The president of Nigeria Dr, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan,the legislature and his executive must stop playing politics with the and properties of Nigerian and must work hard to justify the mandate given to him by Nigerians he must nolt faiol all Nigerians in the discharge of his duties as the president of this country. Gudluk and Bye