::A Geek in Korea::

I remember the first time I sat down to study a foreign language in the high school library with some classmates. The first thing we did was grab the English to Spanish dictionary and look up curse words that we couldn’t conjugate or use in sentences. We didn’t know how to use the basics of grammar, had an exceedingly small vocabulary, but we thought we could curse in another language.

The whole "We are cursing in school right now without getting in trouble" aspect was one part of the allure. So was the whole exclusivity of being able to curse in another language when no one else could. Since no one could understand us, it became a sort of secret code of rebellion against our hated Spanish teacher. Literal translations of curses stink anyway, since you don’t know the feeling behind the words and can’t properly intone them anyway. We could have been shouting gibberish or making up words like Dr. Seuss for as much meaning as any phrase we might have memorized had in all likelihood.

Still, we never dared to curse in Spanish in class, or to actually use curses where we had the opportunity to be understood. There is a joy in cursing, in the taboo of the act. For teenagers, the anticipation or fear of punishment, and the exhilaration of getting away with the unthinkable is a powerful thing.

I’m not surprised when my students use their electronic dictionaries to learn new swear words. They spend a considerable amount of money on them, and they use them constantly. Of course people use them for the same things I used to do. The problem is, when they do that in class, it’s highly annoying and disruptive. I had a class that went crazy today because of an electronic dictionary.

One extremely foul mouthed student always brings his electronic dictionary to class. I don’t know if he curses like a sailor at home, but he swears more than movie gangsters in class. He has a really bad habit of cursing, and having new ways of learning new curse words isn’t helping. He’s started corrupting the entire class. He doesn’t hold anyone in respect and will curse at them for anything.

When he isn’t cursing, he’s using his electronic dictionary to curse for him. He’ll use the phonetic dictionary speech to say loud curse words in class. When I tell him to stop, he’ll act innocent as if his dictionary is simply possessed and speaks long sentences calling other students terrible things on it’s own. I’ve tried to take his dictionary away from him, but it’s an expensive toy, and it does help him with his homework. He shouldn’t be using it in class, but since he does nothing but curse at other students anyway, I’d rather have him playing Tetris int he back of class than making me angry.

Today, he started looking up words for the lesson, then started to play with his dictionary again. He called a girl in class a terrible name. She got out her dictionary and responded. The other student used his phone with English dictionary to curse at both of the other students. The students assume that I don’t know anything and I don’t understand that they are saying bad words, but I know everything they say, and they aren’t all that good at being subtle. Since they don’t know why English curses carry the weight they do, when they curse in English they just laugh instead of getting angry. I’m the only one getting a headache because of it. I just wait until after class and tell my head teacher that the class was swearing, again. I can’t punish students that never do homework and behave this badly because I need to have a reward to remove in the first place.

As I type, a solution to the situation seems to have presented itself as long as my head teacher will agree to it. I’ll just take their beloved possessions and put them in my desk until the next class. Use your dictionary to curse? Fine, bring your mother to school and get it back. When she watches your behavior in class, I’m sure she’ll understand why you can’t be trusted to have such materials anymore. Will it work? I doubt it. My only other choice is to wait them out and hope they quit or get reevaluated at the beginning of another semester and removed from my class. That’s not much of a hope either.