Bullies, Bad Words, and My Cousin the English Oracle
I got teased, so I did what my family did when we needed help with English: I called my cousin.
“Fuck you!” I declared proudly and slightly belligerently, head held high.
My tormentor cocked her blonde head and examined me thoughtfully. “OK.” She finally pronounced. “Where?”
My mouth dropped open. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. At all.
The night before, I had called my cousin. Of course I did. We had come to America in 1979 when I was eight years old. My family had no English, $300 to our name, and hardly any clothes. But my aunt, uncle and ten-year old cousin had been here for two years. And my cousin’s English was superb. She quickly became our interpreter. If we needed a bureaucratic form filled out, our names spelled, a doctor’s appointment made, a letter written, or a million other things we asked her for help.
It wasn’t just English my cousin had picked up. She knew which gum was good and which was gross, how to dress, which shows to watch, and how to make Jiffy Popcorn. If she didn’t know something about America, it probably was not worth knowing.
Which is why, when kids at school started making my life a living misery, I turned to her.
Tearfully, I explained that a clique of girls had only one hobby: picking on me. They would gather around me every day saying things and laughing when I didn’t understand. Judging by the kids’ body language, I was sure they swore. Often. I was convinced that if I knew how to curse as well as they did, they would leave me alone. Could my cousin teach me? Could she give me a curse of my very own? If I swore at them, they would ease up a little. Could my cousin teach me?
There was silence on the other end.
“Could you teach me a swear word,” I again prompted the family’s English Oracle after what seemed an oddly protracted silence.
Another pause. Finally, I heard her say “Fack.” I duly repeated this term but apparently, I wasn’t pronouncing it correctly. I needed to practice. So, ignoring my parents who kept coming into the kitchen to make sure I was not monopolizing our sole rotary telephone frivolously, I repeated the word again and again. My parents, satisfied that I was learning English, left me alone to my studies. Finally, after about ten minutes of strenuous effort, my cousin gave my diction the nod of approval.
But a mere fuck was not enough. I also had to say “you.” At first, I was relieved. I could pronounce “you.” Surely, I would not need to practice that. My cousin thought not. She had heard kids in school say these two words and knew they had to be delivered quickly, confidently, and assertively. And, to make things a bit harder, both words had to be stressed the same way. If I didn’t say it properly or if I thought too long about it, it wouldn’t work. I had to practice some more. It took me another five minutes of hard work to get the phrase just so. But finally, I got it.
That night I fantasized about the inevitable confrontation the next day. The pack of girls would descend on me, mocking as they always did. They would deploy their arsenal of swear words, thinking I couldn’t understand them. Imagining I had no retort. But this time, I would be ready with my own curse. I would utter it, swiftly and confidently. It would stop them in their tracks. I would fool them into thinking I had understood them. And that would scare them.
For if I could understand them, I could report them to the teachers patrolling the playground. And why wouldn’t I? What did I have to lose? They would look over their shoulders, making sure the authorities were not in evidence. And then they would decide that taunting me was not worth it. They would leave me alone. At least for a while. Those two little words I spent so long learning that night would save me a lifetime of torment.
It would play out exactly as it did in the many stories my cousin and I read since we were five years old.
That morning, when I got up to go to school, I was ready to face them. I was ready for anything.
And so, when their leader approached me, her jeans Fonz-style and her hair immaculately permed, I declared “Fuck you!” as confidently as I could. And then, stood there, mouth slightly agape, when rather than cowering, my blonde tormentor asked… but what had she asked, exactly?
That night I called my cousin once more and told her my story. She listened quietly. So quietly, in fact, that I asked her if she was still there. She was. So, I posed a question that, in retrospect, I probably should have asked at the outset. “What does ‘fuck you’ mean?”
Another silence. Longer this time.
“Do you know what it means?”
“No,” she responded. “But I know it’s a swear word. And that is all you asked for.”
Today, Inna Tysoe is a wife and pug-Mom who has mastered English well enough to meet and marry a Brit. When she’s not writing, she does medical coding and works on her neighborhood’s newsletter. Some of her work can be found here.
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