Oh, Pinecone!

This piece is about 100 words below the limit, so if you have any advice on how to expand this slightly I'd love to hear it. Other advice is always welcome as well, of course. Enjoy! :)

2.  How much do you curse and why? 

     As a child, I was taught never to curse by my parents. No one in my family swore in my presence for years, and my first exposure to the subject came from foul-mouthed friends in elementary school. In fourth grade, everyone was beginning to try out these strange, new words, discovering the weirdly extreme reactions they provoked from adults. I learned the f-word, s-word, b-word, a-word, on and on. However, I was never interested in using them. I’ve never been a rebellious child, and there never seemed to be good enough reason to stir up trouble.

    Around the same time, my aunt Jenny taught me a rather profound lesson about swearing, one that is fundamental to my current understanding of the subject. We were on summer vacation in Wisconsin, and she pointed out that the reason people curse is to release and communicate negative emotions. The words themselves usually have little to do with what we’re upset about, they’re just customary thanks to cultural taboos. Shocking words convey shocking emotions. To release the emotions though, any word will do. If you say, “Oh, pinecone” with enough conviction, it can act as a swear word for you just as well as any “real” one. I thought this was hilarious at the time and spent the rest of the day shouting “Pinecone!” to anyone within earshot, but in time I realized how right she was. Don’t get me wrong, I could never seriously swear using the word “pinecone,” but other inoffensive words almost always suffice. For example, I often exclaim, “Oh shoot!” after realizing that I’ve forgotten to do some piece of homework or dying in a video game. Many of my friends would use a short string of Anglo-Saxon vulgarisms there instead, but the emotional content is no different. The reaction is just a reflex, and by falling into the habit of using innocent curses, I avoid unnecessary offenses.

    That’s not to say this method is flawless. It’s very difficult to change cursing habits once they’re well established, which makes this hard to implement for older people. I still use the word “God!” in my cursing, which can definitely offend some people. I’ve tried for years to drop it from my vocabulary, but a surprising event still brings it back out. In addition, I believe some situations are calamitous enough to warrant “real” swearing. I’ve never been in such a position, but if, say, my house were to burn down, I think a harsh curse or two might be in order. Furthermore, swearing can be humorous. An occasional dirty joke is hilarious, and by cutting out major swear words one loses the opportunity to make those jests. Would Mr. Sutton be as funny if he didn’t using swearing (judiciously) to make his points in class? I think the shock factor of such cursing adds something, but the key is that it’s shocking. Swearing is a powerful tool, but only if used sparingly. Just as bacteria become resistant to the drugs that we use against them, we become jaded towards curse words if they are overused. Dweeby though it may sound, I think I’ll stick to my tame swearing until there’s better reason not to.

I Stole the Essay

2.  Have you ever taken something that you weren’t supposed to? 

Yes. I’m normally a very honest person, but I was in a rush to finish my homework so I stole this essay from an unsuspecting student in the hallway yesterday. Enjoy my ill-gotten gains!

Dreamland Tweezers

3/1/16

What's Your Type?

The other day, I took the Myers-Briggs personality test for fun. It said that I am an Advocate (type INFJ-T), which apparently means that I’m focused on deep relationships and ideals. It says I have a lot of passions and want to make a difference in the world. It says the last thing I want is power/leadership, but I will still end up getting it sometimes for my high level of interest. It goes on and on for pages like that, sometimes accurately, sometimes laughably not. On the whole, it was very interesting to read, but I don’t put much stock by it. I’ve heard too much about personality tests for that.

In 1948, a psychologist named Bertram Forer gave a simple personality test to his students. A week later, he gave his students results and asked them to judge their accuracy on a scale of zero (terrible) to five (perfect). The students’ average response was a 4.26, but there was a catch. All of them had been given the same list of results, which Forer had compiled from a newsstand astrology book! Students felt that results represented them well only because they were so general, with statements like “At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved.” This has come to be known as the Barnum effect, and it makes me considerably more skeptical of any and all personality tests I take.

The Myers-Briggs test in particular has a lot of flaws. It was developed over half a century ago by two housewives who were fascinated by the writings of Carl Jung. That isn’t necessarily bad, but Jung was often criticized for being unscientific, which casts some doubt on the test. More importantly, the test is entirely bimodal and does not measure fundamental personality traits. For example, people are classified as either thinking or feeling, introverted or extraverted, and so on. There’s no middle ground. Most people are in the middle of the extraversion spectrum though, and thinking and feeling are definitely not on opposite ends of a spectrum. Even if these fundamental issues didn’t exist, people are unlikely to answer truthfully. Variation in mood likely causes variation in results and we all idealize ourselves to some degree. But does that matter?

I honestly don’t mind the inaccuracy of the Myers-Briggs test, provided it’s only being used for its intended purpose. The test was never meant to be a factor in job applications, for example, but it is frequently used in such circumstances anyway. I’m totally against these usages, as the test is plainly inconsistent and thus should never be considered an important factor in life decisions. However, it’s wonderful when used for personal enjoyment. I have a lot of fun comparing my results to friends’, and sometimes they can really make you think. On this test, it was surprisingly accurate about my hypothetical parenting style. It said that my goal would be to raise children who I could eventually speak to as equals about my passions, and I would likely struggle with not pushing them towards those interests. Out of everything it said about me, that particular statement seemed quite true, and it prompted me to think a little about my future and what it would be like to have kids. That seems like the “proper” use of a personality test to me: a source of amusement primarily, and occasionally a prompt to help us reflect a little on our personalities.