289 thoughts on “Bus Rules”

  3. Why Do people Insist on Random Capitalization of words?

    I’m sure if my kid rode on this bus there would be more rules added. My kid is, shall we say, inspirational.

    1. If my kid rode there would at the very least be a line added that says “Do NOT Eat the seats. (Seats are not edible and they cost us good money.)”

      1. Your kid must be related to my student who inspired the rule of Do not lick your classmates.

    2. If my kid rode the bus they would have to add a maximum decibel level rule for speaking. And a rule against mutiny.
      😉

      1. “And a rule against mutiny”

        That might be an interesting idea for a movie– “Mutiny on the Bus Route.”

        Plot: Several bus workers, along with the bus kids, seize control of a church bus from a tyrannical bus captain. The bus captain and his loyalists are then forcibly removed from the bus near Cabrini Greens and the mutineers chart a course for, well, anywhere but FBC.

        Lines from the script:

        Bus Captain William Bligh: “Now don’t mistake me. I’m not advising cruelty or brutality with no purpose. My point is that cruelty with purpose is not cruelty– it’s Christianity.”

        Brother Fletcher Christian: “He doesn’t humiliate people for discipline. He likes to see people crawl.”

        Brother John Mills: “There’s no chance for people like us to go back to Hammond and give Hyles a bad name and walk free men ourselves. And anyone who thinks otherwise hasn’t got the sense God gave geese.”

        Then again, have you ever had an idea that seemed good until you wrote it down?

        2. You mean like the Jack Chick film that was recently featured here on SFL?

          Too bad they didn’t figure out how bad it really was!

        4. But I would still pay good money (well, a reasonable part of said money) to see that film!
          If it goes on Kickstarter I will pay either the monetary value or else two full boxes of Krispy Kreme Glazed Donuts towards its production.
          And I do know that any good movie producer/assistant/extra can get tempted beyond all reason by a piping-hot doughnut; I know my Warner Brothers.

    4. I’m not sure why Some people Capitalize certain Words. However, it was, apparently, how people were taught in England in the late 1800s.

      I’m Guessing that capitalizing a word gives it special Emphasis in the writing.

        4. Yes. This is why a lot of nouns were capitalized in English a few hundred years ago–a Germanic legacy in English. A certain subset of Americans seem to be under the impression that early Americans capitalized for emphasis rather than because of the German history of many English nouns, and so they use capitalization this way. It’s annoying.

        5. You’re right, Renee: In colonial American documents, the nouns were capitalized, not words the writer was trying to emphasize.
          Printers did sometimes use italic or bold face type for emphasis during that period, though.

    5. Not just Random Capitalization is faulty, but the use of “other’s” means you only have to concern yourself with the feelings of one other person.

      1. Yes, why doesn’t one of our First Ladies focus on what this country needs most– teaching people how to use apostrophes?

        1. YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

          I’m pretty sure that would mean going against Common Core though.

        3. Dr F, I just rescinded my dinner invitation.

          Or maybe not, and I’ll just wear a burqa instead of my heels and pearls.

    6. A friend told me her daughter’s teacher sent a note home saying the child should stop bringing live cockroaches to school.
      The kid is just very, very interested in all the bugs in the yard.
      I think the girl’s going to be a great biologist some day, so I encourage her interest in small animals (but I didn’t tell her to bring them to school– I promise THAT wasn’t me).

      1. Sure! Yes, I believe you …. (whispers)(But imagining the look on the teacher’s face made it all worth it, didn’t it?)

      3. I would rather have live cockroaches than the live scorpion someone brought me, “Can we keep it for our class pet?”

        2. True. We fed it crickets, which was both fascinating and horrifying to watch. I felt like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

    7. I couldn’t find a video of Bart Simpson when he dates Reverend Lovejoys daughter and gets kicked out for “Most gratuitous use of the word BUTT.”

      I can’t tell you how many times I thought of Ned Flanders from the Simpsons during a service. We had a Flanders lookalike pastor and I just couldn’t help laughing at my insiders only joke. Even more sad is many people at my old church thought The Simpsons were too worldly and couldn’t share my humor!

  4. This is the closest to “first” I have ever managed.
    “A rule not enforced is no rule at all.” That seems to sum up many fundamentalists I have known. Its all about the enforcing of rules. Because if there is no hell, there is no need for the cross. Because if there are no consequences it is cheap grace. And so the fire and brimstone sermons are the purest form of sharing the Gospel to my fundy friends.

    1. Sounds right. A lot of sermons I have heard emphasized that God can not just excuse sin without judging it and casting it away from His Presence.

      As if God is somehow constrained in His choices. He is supposed to be God, right?

      But evidently He can’t be a God that doesn’t eventually throw everything He creates into the fire as worthless if it doesn’t perfectly agree with Him.(OCD?) That is why He has to always have His praises sung or chanted in Heaven. (Egomania?) Only people washed in the Blood of the Lamb can stand before Him.

      Of course, it reduces God down to being little more than a program or set of rules without any real personality or relationships.

      1. That theology at its most primal level–that God cannot forgive without punishing the sin– indicates God has a double standard. Jesus taught for us to turn the other cheek, forgive–and if our brother has offended us we need to go and forgive them before we offer our sacrifice. But God doesn’t forgive like that according to this theology.
        I find that theology also to demean God. My grandfather could forgive without punishing me or my siblings. Yet God cannot.

        1. Got news for you: The whole concept of Jesus as the perfect sacrifice follows that same train of thought. God “forgives” us only after the price has been paid: a Human sacrifice. (And we thought the Aztecs were crazy.)

        2. God cannot simply overlook sin. He is inflexibly holy and righteous, and because he said if we sin we will die, he must punish sin or he would cease to be righteous. Yes it’s a double standard, because he is God and we’re not. The above posts are blasphemous, and hopefully posted in ignorance.

        3. Maybe, Nick, but a lot of Christians would say that your caricaturization of God as inflexible (and also, by logical extension, non-omnipotent) to be blasphemous. While I personally believe that substitution is a major part of Paul’s soteriology, there are entire segments of historic Christianity which disagree, including pretty much all oriental orthodox, eastern catholic, most anabaptist, and some other protestants.

        4. I affirm God’s omnipotence, but he cannot do something contrary to his nature. He can’t lie, for example. If other Christian traditions disagree, that’s on them, but I believe the Bible, correctly understood :-), teaches a penal substitutionary atonement. I came out of fundamentalism too, but praise God he didn’t let me throw the baby out with the bath water. Have a good day!

        5. What about Paul asserting that God will send people strong delusions, that they should believe a lie? (II Thessalonians 2). And what about God sending the lying spirit to Ahab to deceive him so that he would go to die in battle?

          God countenances it, God takes ownership of it.

          The Hebrews passage does not say that God cannot lie. It says that there are things in which God cannot lie. Specifically two: the unchangeableness of His purpose, and the oath He swore by Himself on top of that. (Hebrews 6). It does not, as some sloppily read it, say or mean that God can never lie at any time or for any reason.

        6. Well, the Bible does mention God deceiving people. I don’t know if that counts as lying. But the bottom line is that you cannot be limited in power by your own nature and still be omnipotent. Unless by omnipotent we just mean so very much more powerful than humans. I personally don’t think philosophical arguments are much help here; but I also like to very careful about giving glib statements regarding the deity. There is something to that apophatic theology, after all 🙂

        7. Each atonement theology paints a piece of the picture of what Christ’s birth, life, death and resurrection accomplished. But each atonement theology, when pushed to its fullest point paints a distorted picture of God. In the punitive/substitionary theology, God is pictured as one who cannot forgive without a sacrifice –powerless to do so. Yet Christ painted a completely different picture–a God who would go to all lengths to reveal himself to people and to forgive us–a God willing to forgive. He forgave sins regularly in the Gospels before he was even sacrificed. Perhaps God is capable of dealing with our sin and forgiving us, but it is only through the Cross that we would actually believe and receive that forgiveness. We returned the love and healing of Christ with fear, hatred, torture and death–and God still forgave.
          No, Nick, what I have said above is not in ignorance. I have studied and still study and wrestle with Scripture and theology.

      2. in response to Nick, I am not sure the Bible really says that. I believe penal substitutionary atonement really doesn’t come on the scene until MANY years later.

        1. The Pauline epistles seem to argue for substitutionary atonement.
          I don’t find the concept in the Gospels.

        2. To all who don’t see penal substitutionary atonement in the OT or gospels, the question to you: have you looked enough? Gen. 3.15 (the judgement promise, prophecy, and protoevangelium) clearly demands it. The Mosaic sacrifices which picture Christ demands it. The Passover Lamb (which Christ fulfilled) demands it.

          Here is the kicker: N.T. Wright holds to the concept (though some have questioned if he does, it is now clear that he does adhere though he stresses many other things). Wright is probably the most developed and peer reviewed NT scholar living, so this fact is significant.

          The anachronistic and sanitized reading of the record just won’t do. Examine your presuppositions, your cultural bias, your “Greek baggage.” Death is the enemy which Christ, demonstrating His love, conquered for us.

        3. Okay, here is the kicker. I don’t care who N.T. Wright is. As far as I can tell, the protoevangelium does not exist as imagined by scholars emphasizing substitutionary atonement.

          You talk about being aware of preconceptions? Cultural baggage?

          What would this passage have sounded like to the original hearers? That MUST be its primary meaning. If God gave a message to people that he deliberately designed them to misunderstand, then He is a God of deceits.

          There is no Satan in Genesis 3. There is a serpent, identified as a beast of the field. Satan does not appear in the Old Testament until the latter years of David’s reign. His appearance in Job is not an issue. The people would NOT have known this Scripture. God was revealing Himself to a people which had even forgotten His Name.

          So in the creation/garden account, God threatens Adam with death In The Very Day he eats from the tree. The serpent tells Eve she will not die from eating the tree, but will become like God, knowing good and evil.

          And it turns out that God lied and the Serpent told the truth. They do not die that day. They become as God, knowing good and evil, a situation That concerns God enough to talk to (who?) about it. They are put out of the garden. The serpent is judged as a serpent, not as an angel of status or power. Satan was not judged to crawl in the dirt. If the serpent was Satan, God gave an inappropriate judgement, judging a lesser creature for the deeds of the greater.

          No, the passage does not talk about Spiritual Death. That concept appears nowhere in the Old Testament. Nowhere. Nada. Zip. Ditto the concept of eternal hell fire. It doesn’t exist. Nor would God have threatened Adam and Eve with a concept they did not and could not have possessed.

          Nor did the Israelites who first hears the story know anything about a Hell. They knew about death. They knew about the grave. Not hell, though. And not Satan as a personage.

          The creation stories left out angels or demigods, unlike the creation stories of Egypt and Babylon.

          So, what did the story mean to the common man or woman who heard it? God was very much like a parent, who might threaten dire judgements for disobedience, but Who, like a parent, usually gave token punishments. And when we got old enough to make our own decisions, He pushed us out into the world to experience it for ourselves. Even then God doesn’t send us out naked or empty handed. He makes provision for us.

          And as the people wandered the wilderness, they experienced the meaning time and again.

          Interpreting early scripture with later scripture not written by the same author is wrong.

        4. I believe I have said that all the atonement theologies speak to truths about Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection. Each is spoken of in Scripture. Yet when held to solely or pushed to the uttermost edge, each theology seems to skew the picture of God painted in Christ. Each one paints a part of the picture and each one falls short on their own.

    1. Yeah, that’s my problem B.A. Thinking of any inanimate object as “sanctified” is a pretty messed up view. As I think about it, it really tweaks me deep down inside. OOHHHHH, it burns me up!!!! “This is a church bus and has been sanctified for the Lord’s work.” That makes me want to hit and throw things. How the bus is treated is more important than the people being transported on it.
      3…2…1 1…2…3 what in the world is bothering me? Deep breaths, ok, I’m a little better.

      1. “How the bus is treated is more important than the people being transported on it.”
        Exactly!

      2. Sanctified bus…

        pfft the thing probably doesn’t even have working brakes.

        Definitely does not deserve quality maintenance. Most likely held together by bondo and prayer.

      3. Norm, lots of inanimate objects in the Old Testament were sanctified, including fields. So, that actually may be the most Biblical thing on the sign.

        1. Perhaps this illustrates how much of the IFB is more comfortable with the law of the OT than Jesus’ teachings.

      4. This reminds me of the song “Big Ol Rollin Turd, ” that Robin Williams sang in the movie “RV.” We all know what that sanctified bus and bus ride is like. My 14 year old daughter would be kicked off before she ever set foot on that bus. The child must have a gastric issue because she can out burp any man.

        1. Speaking of which, if you haven’t seen photos from the Concourse d’LeMon (a Pebble Beach spoof of the kind of snotty ‘worlds most expensive cars show’), you absolutely have to look it up. Rolling turd, indeed.

      5. Well, the Tabernacle itself was sanctified. So were the censers, bowls, spoons and utensils used in the worship. The fire used in the worship had to be from a particular source, the altar and the lamp stand. The fire was supposed to never be allowed to go out.

        And good-hearted old Uzzah, who put out his hand to steady the Ark of God on the ox-cart infuriated the Lord, Who killed him.

        So yes, things are more important than people. That was the way God designed worship from the beginning.

        1. Yes, just as Jesus taught when he refused to heal people on the Sabbath or in the synagogue. Because days and places are also more important than people.

        4. I have witnessed a weird dynamic in some (more fundy, to be honest) parts of evangelicalism, where they are so worried about defending their view of Scripture (usually called inerrancy, but frankly going beyond the bounds of even the CSBI) that they re-explain Jesus’ teachings to be congruent as much as possible with the OT. Which makes you wonder, because if they were so similar, why wouldn’t the Jews have accepted him?

        5. Ah huh. Like the fact that Jesus refused to condemn the woman taken in adultery. They make it out that Jesus refused on a technicality — the man wasn’t there to be judged.

          So Jesus’ words of “Let him that is without sin cast the first stone” really doesn’t mean anything to them. Why, if it did it would say that God can refuse to condemn someone for sinning, even if they haven’t said they were sorry! (and she didn’t, in the story)

          Life doesn’t have to be all about right or wrong. Sometimes our experiences are just, well, experiences. God doesn’t have to slap our hands for every mistake, or think that we deserve death and hell for swearing when we hammer the thumb instead of the nail. Maybe He loves us more than that.

          In any case, I want a God like Jesus more than a God like fundamentalism.

        2. Oh, please. Armor-All is for Pastor’s car’s tires, not the church bus! Pastor’s car carries Pastor Himself; the church bus carries kids we wouldn’t otherwise let into the church. The bus may be sanctified, but the car is IMPORTANT.

    3. I guess they have to deconsecrate old buses before they can sell them or scrap them.
      They can borrow the ceremony from the Catholics (who deconsecrate old church buildings if they are being converted for secular use).

  6. I did not realize that saying the word “fart” was in violation of the sanctification of the Lord’s work. Fart = sin, but calling someone a heifer = truth??…that is fundy logic. I cannot believe Paul did not write about this subject…

      3. My mother, who never uttered a profane word (at least in my presence), used the term “pass gas.”

        1. I remember my Granny once asking if I ” blew a stink”.
          As I recall, she didn’t think her Dodge on a hot Georgia summer day was appropriate for that. I thought she would be slower getting to the car.

    2. @Luke – so right! If they are going to preach against “freakin'” and “fart”, then they should not be calling women “heifers”, which is every bit as bad.

      1. I am deeply grateful that I was not personally exposed to preachers that used foul language like that. (I’m sure they think “foul” only means “swear words”, but mocking people like that, especially from the pulpit where one is supposed to be honoring Christ, is truly ugly to me.

    3. After hearing our pastor joke about heifers from the pulpit (for the 17,000 time), one of my kids asked what a heifer was, actually. When i told her it was a female cow (or whatever), she asked me why it was acceptable to call a woman a female cow but not the term for female dog. We concluded it wasn’t that much different and ended up laughing at the sheer idiocy of it all.

  9. We had a sub teacher in grade school who insisted that dang and “jeez” were swearing. Let’s just say that didn’t go so well.

    1. As a kid, my mom was convinced that “jeez” was short for “Jesus”. We weren’t allowed to say it, of course.

      2. Well, KeepOn, your mom was right – according to the dictionary, “jeez” is a “euphemistic shortening of Jesus”

        1. I still feel guilty when I say “gee”.
          Some days I wonder which is worse, to only be able to talk as squeaky-clean as Aunt Bea in church, or to use the F and the S and the B as all-purpose synonyms. 😐

      3. Yes the old euphemism argument. Believe it or not, I’ve had that argument as an ADULT! Yes, I’m old enough to finance my own house and have a kid in the military but please, take time out of your busy day to correct what you think is my taking the Lord’s name in vain.

        In my context a euphemism is like a substitute word for a swear word. Or a shortcut or substitute for taking the Lord’s name in vain. A definition of euphemism is “a generally innocuous word or expression used in place of one that may be found offensive or suggest something unpleasant.”

        Jeez = Jesus
        Gosh = God
        Dang = Damn
        Holy Smokes = Holy Sh*t
        There are many more.

        There are so many more important things (like policing your own bad pronunciation) than to be correcting someone else, especially another adult, on what you think is their offensive and erroneous use of the word Jeez. Or whatever word you find offensive.

        1. Try flip and rip. “I don’t give a flip, or I don’t give a rip”. We have heard that from the pulpit more than a dozen times. UGH! I cringe because it isn’t exactly a very nice thing to say from the pulpit. I won’t deny that I have said the term…more than once, but I just don’t see it appropriate from the pulpit.

    2. I remember the first time I heard my mother say ‘gosh’. I was about 19 and I was shocked. Imagine my surprise when 5 or 6 years later, when she dropped the Thanksgiving turkey, and let out a sharp ‘shit!’. My first inkling that she was a human being.

    3. Oh geez (teehee), when I was a little kid I got my best friend into trouble that way. I said “geez”, she told me that was a swear word, and I, with much confusion, assured her that it wasn’t. She took my word for it, and proceeded to use the term “geez” in front of her mom. Ho-ly crap, I still feel guilty for the yelling-at that kid got.
      The same mother also said that I was a bad influence on her children because I said “heck” and “darn”.
      I can’t understand how what syllable you exclaim can be more important than how you behave and treat other people.

      1. It’s holier just to use the fill-in-the-blank method. Shout, “What the !” If people fill in the missing word with Gutter Talk, that’s their own problem.

        1. Nope, one of my (college) classmates got a sharp retort when he said “what the??”

      1. One thing I hope every viewer learned: You do NOT piss off a Nun. Ever. Under ANY circumstances. ESPECIALLY Not A Mother Superior.
        Some things are never EVER to be forgiven, and even non-Catholics know what I mean. 👿

  10. Shouldn’t they be encouraging the kids to resolve their problems on their own? Instead they are creating tattle tails…..oh wait, they are starting the tattling to the preacher early.

  11. Considering the IFB’s favorite evangelist Phil Kidd introduced me to Christian cussing from the Pulpit with interesting phrases, the language rule is ironic.
    (I don’t give a flip, I don’t give a rip, Goodnight, Shut the front door)

    3. I just mentioned that above. We have heard that MANY times from the pulpit. Ugh! One other thing that some people I know tell their kids to say “up shut”. UH!!! Okay! Shut up works better for me. LOL!!!

  12. I had no idea that Fart (To force gas out of your butt (buttocks (ass (anus))) was considered gutter slang. Heck (gutter slang for hell), I didn’t even know there was such a term as gutter slang (friken, freaken, fart, dang, etc.).

    1. Gutter slang sounds like a term from a Charles Dickens’ book. Or Grace Livingston Hill.

      1. Oh my. The memories. I think I must have read all of GLH’s books. Tended to mess with my teenaged head, insofar as expectations for relationships. I certainly never met any men who acted like the men in her books.

        1. GLH plots:
          Choose a female –
          1. Rich holy girl
          2. Poor holy girl
          3. Rich wicked girl
          4. Poor wicked girl
          Now choose a counterpart male:
          1. Poor wicked man
          2. Rich wicked man
          3. Poor holy man
          4. Rich holy man
          Throw in an unrealistic violent attack, deadly illness, or hard-hearted family… Voila!

        2. The squeaky-clean ones or the reprobates? Seems once they doff the white hat or black hat, they never take it off. 🙄

        3. I always tended to be a white-hat type of guy. I treated others with consideration. I never swore. I was nice. And I always wondered why girls would never date me.

          Not, of course, that my appearance was too unprepossessing. I wasn’t particularly handsome. But I was the perfect “big brother” to figuratively cry on his shoulder about relationship troubles. Sigh. The girls liked the black hats. They were far more interesting.

          Fortunately, I eventually found a girl who would date me. Only, she cautioned me that our time together was “not a date!” I took it anyway, and we eventually got married.

          But it seems that having a white-hat mentality is disadvantageous to the wearer. It should be at least gray, or dirty. GLH was an author I read (as a teen I was starved for books and I devoured anything my parents would let me). I may have a couple of her books in my library still.

          It was all pretty much standard fairy-tale fare. But then again, the fundamentalism I believed at the time was pretty much fairy-tale fare as well. Everything simplistic. Pure black or pure white. No shades of gray (and certainly NOT 50 of them!). Sex was mysterious and forbidden to even think about. Motivations were supposed to be as pure of heart as were Dudley DoRight of the Mounties.

        4. Panda, I think you meant to type “don.”
          Don: Put (something) on.
          Doff: Take (something) off.

        6. There are 3 books now? I didn’t know.

          Of course, I don’t think I could read them. My face would be burning red the whole time.

          So I really don’t know how wretched they are. And I am not likely to have the willpower (or whatever) to find out.

    2. I’ve not heard the term “gutter slang” before, but I have heard words such as “dang” described as some long word that escapes me at the moment.

        1. Good guesses — more along the lines of “homonym”, but that’s not the right word either.

      2. The Canucks use a different word for gutter (I haven’t seen the “Red Green” show in ages so I forget the word). Does that mean it would be gutter slang? Why discriminate against Canadians?

        3. It is an eavestrough! The gutter is in the street 😛

          And soda is for baking cookies. It’s called pop.

    1. Nothing, but I think most of us agree farting on a packed bus is bad. (no escape!)

      2. Well, if they don’t want people to fart on the bus, they shouldn’t encourage things like swallowing raw goldfish.

    2. For a long time it was just one of those words that people considered vulgar, crass, or rude. Euphemisms like “passing gas” were preferred. I wonder if it’s because of its etymology. I know that many times after the Norman Conquest of England, simple Saxon words were considered low-class and replaced with “fancier” French words instead (that’s the explanation I heard for why “sh*t” became a bad word while “manure” is not.)

    3. The problem is that it’s a word of Anglo-Saxon origin.

      After the Norman Invasion of England (1066), the aristocracy and upper clergy in England largely spoke French, while the peasantry and working classes continued to speak English (what we now call Old English or Anglo-Saxon). Therefore, French words and other Latinate words (flatus, flatulence) took on an air of politeness and sophistication, as befit the ruling class, while Anglo-Saxon words (fart) were associated with poor or uneducated, and supposedly uncultured people. This trend was strengthened by the tendency until fairly recently of educated people to use Latin for formal writing and even speaking.
      That’s why Latin terms like “penis” and “vagina” are still more polite to say than their Anglo-Saxon equivalents.
      This had an interesting effect on food: Often animals or plants retained their Anglo-Saxon names out in the field, but when they were cooked and placed on milord’s table, they got French names. Even today, cows, hens, and swine (Anglo-Saxon) become beef, poultry, and pork (French) when they are cut up and cooked.

      1. Ha! Now I see that Pastor’s wife said pretty much the same thing. Well, obviously, I agree with her.

        1. That’s an exception.
          “Squab” is apparently of Scandinavian origin, while “pigeon” comes from French.
          “Dove” is the native English word.

  14. Nothing offends me more than the horrid design. Distracting, confusing, ungrammatical. Hideous.

  15. I would teach the kids to use my super secret slang. When someone says something that doesn’t make sense or if something goes wrong yell ‘OH BOLSHEVIKS!’ Its fun watching people trying to figure out if that is a bad word or not.

    I have been known to use the words ‘Plagiarism” and ‘Apostasy’ in unusual ways. For example if someone says “Can you believe so and so did such and such?” I would shake my head and say ‘Apostasy!’ or ‘Plagiarism!’ Either one. It makes no sense but I like the befuddled looks I get.

    We also used to employ our best Ian Paisely Northern Irish accent and yell ‘REPENT” although it came out sounding like more “RAHPANT!”

    The best one is Gotterdamurung. Its not profanity. It means twilight of the gods…gods as in Thor and that bunch. That’s only used for really extreme situations.

    I’d really love to see all these on a list of banned words…and to hear someone try to explain exactly why they are off limits. 😀

    1. ^^^ This sounds like me and my brother. We always found creative ways, via big words, to “cuss.” I employ the Irish and Scottish accent often to express my displeasure. My mother always yelled, “Great day in the morning!” I just added the Irish accent to it. I worked as an EMT for several years and one night my partner was absent mindedly watching “National Treasure: Book of Secrets” at the station. The part about the Dewey Decimal System was playing and for some odd reason she blurted it out loudly. For the rest of the evening, we would holler it randomly during difficult ambulance calls. Needless to say, our fellow firemen thought we were a bit off kilter. I lov to use “Franklin Delano Roosevelt” as often as possible. So I’d probably get kicked off the bus as well for being a foul mouthed, Progressive, rerobate.

      2. FDR was a Democrat. That’s a no-no in Tea Party fundamentalism.

        Plus, he was an Episcopalian. Double whammy.

        1. I meant to say Democrat. Got to thinking of the other Roosevelt. Either way, I’m sunk. I just no – noed (Is that a word?) right out of a bus ride.

      3. My mother also used “great day in the morning,” along with “what in the Sam hill,” and “they good night” (no idea why she added “they” to that one).
        At fundy U, my roommate and I used the word “jacket” as an expletive. Said with emphasis, it sounds kinda dirty.

        1. Kind of like “jackass,” which just means “male donkey,” but sounds really nasty.

    2. It occurs to me that there are some pretty interesting words in the Minor Prophets. I know I was shocked to come across them as a kid.

      1. The KJV was allowed to use words that we were NEVER allowed to say: “Mom, what does ‘pisseth against the wall’ mean?” “DON’T say that!!!! That’s NAUGHTY!!!” “But it says it in the BIBLE!” (Yes, this conversation happened in my childhood.)

    5. My brother has used heresy, and now I’ve done it as well. I’ve also said halle-freaking-lujah, which is possibly sacrilegious.

  17. Sci if swearing… frack (BSG) shazbot (mork and mindy); frell (stargate) and pataQ (Klingon)

      1. fracking – isn’t that cursing used in Battlestar Galactica series? Of course, those whose water catches fire also use it as a curse word!

        2. Katee Sackhoff plays a deputy sheriff in Longmire. In one episode, they are dealing with corrupt shale oil men, and there was one part where she was asked a question and the answer was a single word “frack”. I swear the writers threw that in as a bone to sci-fi fans!

    3. Frell is from Farscape. So are dren (shit), loomas (breasts), schlock (to shit), drad(cool). I know, so many awesome sci-fi shows so much to remember.

      1. “Schlock” is a real word, but it doesn’t (normally) mean “shit.” It was borrowed into English from Yiddish, and “schlock” means trashy merchandise, especially if it’s gaudy but of low quality. A “schlockmeister” is a purveyor of such goods.
        Depending on which dictionary you go with, “schlock” derives either from “shlack,” Yiddish for “apoplectic stroke;” “shlog,” Yiddish for “wretched or untidy person,” or “Schlacke,” German for “slag, dregs, scum, or dross.”

        More recently, “schlock” has been used in America to describe cultural items that are designed to appeal to low popular tastes: “I don’t watch schlock like “Keeping Up With The Kardashians.”

        1. Apparently, George ate my last post. I googled Farscape swears and boy, did I miss a few really good ones. Much naughtier ones than the ones I listed. Like harpooda (which doesn’t translate one but likely refers to a engaging in a specific sexual act that is considered disgusting) orbsome of the words for sexual organs. But it’s shlock not schlock and it does mean to defecate.

        2. “Shlock” is an alternate spelling of “Schlock” (the Yiddish word). They’re pronounced the same, and mean the same thing.

  18. ‘Allons-y’ or “Geronimo’ for you Doctor Who fans although they didn’t really use them as swear words.

      1. If I remember right, Nine came very close to letting one fly once.

        Will be very interesting to see Peter Capaldi as the Doctor, since is most recent roles were so very well known for dropping the f-bomb every 15 seconds (or less).

    2. I am only on here for the education I get ! So this is tonights school lesson. Thanks, I’ll see you guys tommorrow for the next class!

  19. Read this counterintuitively. Want to get out of attending fundy church on Sunday? Do some of these on the bus!

  21. I enjoy using old-timey exclamations of dismay. “Oh, fiddlesticks!”. “Sugar me eye, Charlie!” (no, I have no idea what it means – my grandma said it because her grandma said it, and now I say it. Come to think of it, knowing the reputation of my great-great grandmothe,r, it’s probably something dirty). “Great googly moogly!”. “Dagnabbit!”. The one that seems to be sticking at the moment isn’t even a real old-timey exclamation of dismay, but it is nonetheless very fun to say: “Oh, Fibber McGee and Molly!”

    2. I also make frequent use of “criminy”. And my strongest invective tends to be variation on “weasel”, though ’tis really rather unfair to weasels, which are pretty dang adorable. A person with whom I am extremely annoyed may be a “crapweasel”, for instance.
      “Saints preserve us!” is also fun to exclaim, especially when your denomination tends to see the idea of saints as heresy.
      “Cripes”, always good.
      I still can’t believe I was marked as a child with whom it was dangerous to associate because I said heck, shoot, and darn.
      Hilariously, one expression my folk at home still hate me saying, despite the liberalising that has occurred over the past decade, is “curses”. But “curses!” is so satisfying to say!

      1. “Curses” is rather satisfying, isn’t it? Rather like the arch-villains of the silent movie era. Mustache, black cape, walking stick, top hat, holding the widow’s mortgage papers while driving her and her lovely young daughter (yummy!) out into the cold because the daughter won’t marry you.

        Then comes along the white hat guy who, through sheer bumbling effects a rescue and wins the girl’s heart.

        Curses! She would have had a much more interesting life if she’d decided to accept my offer!

        1. Don’t forget to twirl your mustache as you say it, makes it so much more effective. 😀

      2. I borrow a page from Spanish and say “Ay!” or in extreme cases, “Ay ay ay!” Not profane at all, but it gets the point across.
        One that is fun to say is “Ay, caramba!”
        “Caramba!” in Spanish these days is rather quaint, sort of like saying “Zounds!” or “Odds bodkins!” in English, but “caramba” remains a lovely word.

        1. I believe “zounds” is short for “God’s wounds” or something like that.
          I wasn’t allowed to use any “minced oaths” as a kid. I had a record (yep, the vinyl kind) with the song “Animal Crackers in My Soup.” I would sing along until it got to the “gosh, oh gee” line, where I would hum instead.
          I was such a good little fundy!

        2. ^ We weren’t allowed to listen to any songs that had minced oaths in them.

          It is so ingrained into my psyche that, while I like the kids’ book “Mrs. McNosh Hangs Out Her Wash”, I have trouble with “Mrs. McNosh and the Great Big Squash” because she says, “Oh, my gosh.”

        4. “Zounds” is supposedly a clipping of “God’s wounds,” and “odds bodkins” is said to be a variant of “God’s body.” Both somewhat blasphemous if you use them to swear.

        7. A bodkin, however, is a small, pointed tool, like a leather awl, for example.
          In Shakespeare’s time, “bodkin” apparently could mean a small dagger, as when Hamlet mentions “a bare bodkin” in his famous soliloquoy

        8. Zounds! That reminds me of the book Catherine, Called Birdy, in which she spends several months trying to come up with the perfect swear word. She finally settles on God’s thumbs! Would that become Zumbs! then?

        9. Medieval oaths were frequently based on God’s body parts- ‘God’s throat!’ was a favorite of Richard I, and oaths on God’s arms, hands, head, feet, etc were common. ‘By the sweet blue eyes of Jesus’ is another one, which is funny because the chances that Jesus had blue eyes were nil. I would not be surprised if I someday come across record of someone swearing by God’s toenails.

          When I’m at a medieval reenactment event, I’ve been really trying to drop the modern slang (a great deal harder than you’d think!), including my trademark Daffy Duck WHOO-HOO! The most common ‘swear’ in my camp is a short, sharp ‘Jesu Maria!’

      3. There are also all of the incarnations of “law” heard in the Appalachian region:
        Law, it’s hot!
        Law help, can’t we get some sweet tea over here?
        Laws a’ mercy, what’s taking so long?

        2. That’s what I always heard, but everyone I knew used it anyway–even those who wouldn’t say “gosh” or “gee.”

  22. “Do not stand on the Seats or Aisles. (Remain seated at all times.)”
    I would have been kicked off the bus for scooting down the aisle on my butt. It says “Remain seated”!

    2. They’ve opened the door for countless creative ways to get to the back of the bus without standing in the aisle.

      1. Do not Launch Your body down the Aisle.

        Do not slide On your Belly (or your Derrierre (bottom) too) down the bus Aisle or Under the seats.

        Do not swing (by your hands (including your elbow’s and forearms (from elbows to wrists)))From Seat Back To seat back Without Touching the floor Of the Bus.

        Do Not hurdle (Step Over) the Backs of Seats on the Bus.

        Do not Climb In or out Of (through) the windows of the Bus. God’s Word teaches that there is One Door and Only One and Yet its Side’s are Two. Use the door.

  23. Aside from No.6, these are all perfectly reasonable rules for any bus riders, don’t fight or call names, don’t throw things, stay in your seats, and yes the driver should be free to discipline trouble-makers as needed. But somehow it never stops there.

  24. I don’t have a problem with these rules in general: they seem like a practical way to ensure safety (emotional safety as well – I don’t feel safe when people are swearing at me, for example).

    What I have a problem with is the general tone of the rules, the attitude expressed in all the little added comments.

  25. I have been told that Cherokee has no bad words. I do not know that for a fact as I do not speak the language but that might have been some cousins telling me nonsense as they secretly plotted to get me in trouble.

    I have on occasion let slip the few words I do know. We used to yell AMA CHESTI which can sound harsh but all it means is “WATER! HURRY!”

    1. I wouldn’t put it past anyone’s cousin not to mess with a little kid; esp with dirty words; it’s just too much to resist.
      When learning another language, a lot of us do want to know the dirty words first.

      1. I’ve mentioned this before on SFL, but my mom never wanted us to say made-up words because we might be inadvertently swearing in another language.

        1. Yes, and if you say English words, you could be swearing in another language, too.
          “Mist” means “feces” in German. “Gift” means “poison” in German.

        4. “Quiche” means urine in Zapotec. Our maid/cook was shocked when asked to bake that.

        5. In my opinion, urine pie is highly overrated.

          But the name “avocado” (from Spanish “aguacate”) is said to come from the Nahuatl word for “testicle.”

        7. Well, that makes sense! Quiche and urine pie are similar in color… I’ll confess I never eat egg pie without thinking of our sweet maid.

        12. Sixth graders using the Beka social studies curriculum are always amused when it comes to studying Lake Titicaca. That combines two lovely ideas.

  26. I imagine little kids seeing the word “fart” on the sign and giggling. That makes me smile. Also wondering if sign author realizes he’s actually educating kids on slang terms they might not have been previously aware of.

  29. Was anyone else instructed, as a child, to not say “fart”, but rather to say “fluff”? To me, “fluff” honestly sounds grosser.

    2. I’m grossed out using “fluff” in that context because of “marshmallow fluff” which we put on sandwiches.

      1. I am offended by anyone putting marshmallow fluff on anything. As if marshmallos are meant to be eaten without Rice Krispies.

    3. I’m pretty sure that’s not what Mom meant when she told me to fluff the pillows in the guest room.

      2. I’m thinking she meant neither the marshmallow kind, the flatulent kind, nor the other kind of fluff.

  30. does it really matter? when i was on bus routes in college, we heard all sorts of stuff. perhaps the sign is excessive but every place must have rules.

    1. What’s funny about the sign is the extra capitalization (and the parentheses). You could borrow some capitals from them, I’m sure. 🙂

  31. Back in the day when Hyles birthed his Satan’s bid for your child pulpit op ed piece, that masqueraded as a sermon, he was beating up on the Beatles again and referred to their song, Back in the USSR where they used the word balalacka, which is a musical instrument. Hyles thought it was a cuss word and refused to allow his anointed lips to utter the word. This revealed his ignorance more than anything. By the way, the Fab Four had been disbanded for several years when that sermonized op ed piece was preached, but beating up on the Beatles is quite a pulpit sport in ifb confabs. And if I’ve mispelled the name of that musical instrument at least I wont be excommunicated for cussing…

      1. I read that op ed piece that was apparently transcribed from a rant desguised as a sermon. Almost no scripture at all. Since the Beatles time in the spotlight musical groups have sung about rape, cop killing, necrophilia, civil unrest, etc., but fir some reason the Beatles have remained the favorite group to bash. They disbanded 44 years ago. Sheesh .

        1. Well, if they had to blame all the evils of society on Led Zeppelin, people would realize that they’d had to update the message. The Beatles then couldn’t have been responsible for all the evils attributed to them.

          So they don’t update the message, and they conflate that with the idea that the Word of God is unchangeable (as if the Bible had anything to say about the Beatles or rock music!).

          No, it seems the things that should have destroyed civilization 40 years ago are the very things that still are threatening to destroy civilization today. That indicates to me they are pretty ineffective and that fundies are ranting about ghosts.

          The John Birch Society today *still* talks about fluoridation of the water, the Council on Foreign Relations, etc. If the Conspiracies they preached against had even a fraction of the power attributed to them, the USA would no longer be a nation, the Soviet Union would still be Communist and in Charge, all churches would be shuttered and your children would be memorizing Marx’s Little Red Book. It turns out that giving blacks voting rights, integrating the schools, and implementing other reforms didn’t destroy the world after all.

          Fundamentalists wallow in their prejudice, ignorance, and hatred. Until they have a salvation moment, in which the lies, the prejudice, and the hatred become sickening to them, they will not change.

    1. A balalaika is sort of a three-stringed mandolin with a triangular body.
      I was going to say there’s nothing the least bit naughty about that word, but then I remembered that some Fundies think guitars and drums are evil.
      Hey, around Fundies, maybe you can curse just by saying “Guitars and drums!”

      1. So… a balalaika is an instrument, a balakava is a dessert, but which one is some sort of hat?

        1. “So… a balalaika is an instrument, a balakava is a dessert, but which one is some sort of hat?”

          Baklava is the dessert. A balaclava is a hood/hat thing.

        2. I know someone who calls the balaclava a baklava. The mental picture of wearing some Greek pastry is amusing, to say the least.

        3. Baklava is an Ottoman Turkish word for the desert, which derives from Arabic (for those who don’t know, there are countless variations and dialects of Arabic – I was in Dubai with a Lebanese friend at an Iraqi restaurant, and the three could actually communicate better in English because their dialects were so different). But the actual desert, known by other names, is also found outside (former) Ottoman territory in Asia. In fact, some people think it actually derives from the Mongolian “bayla”. So it may originally be from the Orient. Either way, a lot of cultures enjoy it!

        4. I had a college roommate of Greek descent, as in her father was a native of the country. She made baklava. Therefore, to me it is Greek. 😛 I also know a Lebanese guy who makes a mean baklava, but it’s still Greek to me.

  34. If you don’t believe that people will understand the word “resolve,” (it is true that some individuals [people] have weak [that is, inadequate (sometimes in both quality and quantity)] vocabularies) just use the word “fix” to start with!

  35. I clearly remember Pillsbury Baptist Bible College having to have chaperones (one more girl than guys) in my car. I was driving to the Fundy sanctioned IFB church in Owatonna. Well, any way……..I let it slip out. There was an older gentleman in front of my car going really slow. I said without thinking ” Come on you old fart”. All the Fundies in my car gasped in horror. Years later I still can laugh myself to tears thinking of their Fundy posturing over my heathen vulgarity. It probably wasn’t the most appropriate thing for me to say, but anyway……one of the Fundy girls that put up the best gasping Fundy outraged reaction at my language I found out later had been sleeping with her Central Baptist Theological Seminary boyfriend. How I know this is my business. No names will be mentioned but they did not marry. What a crock of…………well you know.
    Part of my healing is to laugh at the outrageous hypocrisy now that I’m in my 60’s.
    I really savor my freedom having outgrown my misguided need to be accepted by those clowns and fit into their phony standards of holy living.

    2. 1976 Pillsbury graduate and later CBTSM graduate (it wasn’t me who slept with that PBBC girl). Yes, those standards were self-defeating for many reasons. Firstly, they were the rules of people rather than from the bible. Second, people were the judges instead of God. Thirdly (but not exhaustively), it was legalistic and not gracious.
      Fundamentalism is a gimmick to lure the unsuspecting into thinking it offers superiority over other forms of Christianity.

    3. My favorite term for old men is FOG. As in F**cking Old Guy. Usually used to refer to a retired biker type or other “cool” but mildly fringe-ey older male.

  36. I’m glad you understand. I have to comment however on “gimmick”. Yes it was a gimmick, I agree. I think it goes deeper though. It’s a malignant deception. I think one of the worst forms of deceptions is self-deception. Pride, self-righteousness, superiority complex, etc., etc. all go hand-in-hand when a Fundy takes themselves too seriously and believes their own BS.
    The Pillsbury campus has been sold. It’s now Camp Pillsbury. Dr. Clearwaters and Dr. Rammel are probably rolling over in their graves. I was invited to go there next time my work takes me to southern Minnesota. By an absolute fluke of coincidence I spoke to the new owner who’s from Jacksonville, FL while I was on assignment there for work last year for a month. Aren’t life’s paths really something sometimes?

    Alex The Less, I’ll bet you a new pair of blue denim jeans and a pair of wire-rim glasses (remember they were sinful?) that I know you and you know me and the Fundy CBTS womanizer to boot, but that’s the healing part if this site is its safety in its anonymity. I could ruin some people with what I know and all I want is healing. I recall crying out to The Lord for healing. It did not happen overnight. This site has provided a place that has allowed me to journal my hurt and receive validation that my hurt and outrage are indeed valid and I’m really not a whack-job because I expressed my strong disapproval of the Fundies. I didn’t even know the term Fundy till I stumbled on to SFL last year. Thank you Darrell!!!

    1. Yeah, we probably know or at least did know each other at one time. Its been nearly 40 years. I have zero continuing relationships from those institutions. I met some very nice people though, but maybe the organizations were poisonous.

      Everyone seemed to always want to ‘blow one another out of the saddle’ so to say with all the pseudo spirituality and “separation.” They stressed a rugged individuality whereas the bible encourages standing together: “One will chase a thousand and two of you will chase 10,000.” This is a principle throughout the bible and speaks of exponential working of the Spirit where two or more are gathered in His name.

      I do NOT want to know who the unwed partners were, it has nothing to do with me. We ALL need restoration at times. As you wrote however, the hypocrisy was strange over a mild word comparatively to such a relationship. Never-the-less, I hope they got back on the right track in repentance and healing. I hope you find complete healing too. I saw many moral failures of leaders during my time there proving Col. 2.20-23.

      The most important thing for me is not to worry what religious snobs think or be controlled by religious organizations. Control is inimical to true Christian relationships. Apostleship was first-order in the church and yet Paul did not insist Apollos follow his urging to visit the Corinthians (1Cor. 16.12). Jesus clearly stated that His new body (the church) would NOT be characterized by an overlord structure as seen in Fundamentalist institutions. The New Covenant (see Heb. 8-10) now in effect features an individual relationship with God through the Holy Spirit unlike the religious rule of the OT priesthood. Christ is now with each Christian individual: “I am with you always” (Mt. 28.20). Therefore it matters little what others think (1Cor. 4.3). So long as the the Holy Spirit is pleased and leading, no one else really matters in the ecclesiastical realm.

  37. Reading this post today has taught me that not only do I have a potty mouth because of all the swears, I also have a propensity for “gutter slang.” Who knew?

  38. More than 270 comments and nobody’s said the dirtiest word in the universe yet?

    Fine, I will. BELGIUM!

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