Ain't Ain't a Word... Ain't It?

Words, words, words... I've always been a Talker since I learned to talk. My stream of consciousness readily became spoken words, often without any filter. When I learned to write, watch out, World! I wrote school assignments. I wrote stories. I wrote my thoughts in my Diary long before I heard the word "journal." If there was a newsletter in school, I was involved, usually as a writer, sometimes as The Editor. I'm smiling to remember.

Something I once wrote in the Cecil Avenue School newsletter of which I was the Editor got me in Big Trouble with the Principal, Mr. Young. It was just some goofy story, fiction, which I don't even remember. In fact, I only remember One Word in that very wordy story. That one word caused a great furor in the school when someone's parent read it and complained to Mr. Young.

I should have suspected something must have been wrong with that word, when a boy in my eighth grade class confronted me as I was walking home from school. His name was Kenny. He started out complimenting me on the story in the newsletter, but at the same time snickering behind his hand. I should have suspected something was up. He quoted a line in the (offending) story, and snickered again, then looking at me as if surprised that I didn't know what he was laughing about.

"You do know what [that word] means," his face had become serious, questioning.

"Sure," I shrugged, but feeling a bit uncertain, offered no definition.

He stared at me a few seconds and then turned and took off down a side street toward his home. I went home and pulled out my dictionary and looked up the word.

Dictionary, Webster's New American

Copyright 1939, 1940, 1941, 1944, 1947

queer adj. 1. Odd, singular, droll, strange. 2 slang. Counterfeit; half crazy; uneasy, as, I feel queer.

queer vt. slang To interfere with, as to queer one's chances.

"So... what's wrong with that?" I thought. In the story I had used the word as in the first definition, ummm...strange. That night I just shrugged it off.

The next day at school, things were pretty normal until after the first recess. On the way back to class, everyone crowded around the lockers to retrieve their history book. I noticed a lot of snickering and whispering around me, but thought nothing of it at first.

I sat down at my desk which was in the front of the middle row, opened my book, and suddenly noticed the class was rather quieter than usual, just a small amount of whispering instead of the usual joking and laughing... I glanced back and saw quite a few eyes on me. I shrugged off an uneasy feeling that wanted to creep up my spine.

The teacher stood up and began to talk about the lesson at hand. Looking at her, I tried to concentrate. She talked for about five minutes. Suddenly she stopped, mid-sentence, looking at the door hesitantly. All eyes followed hers, including mine.

Mr. Young, the Principal, was standing just inside the open door. "I need to talk with Norma... Could you excuse her from this class and allow her to catch up later?"

"I'm sure that would be all right..." Mrs. Harris nodded at me.

I rose and stumbled awkwardly in front of the class over to the door. I didn't look at anyone. I'm sure my face was beet red, as I've always been a blusher. I couldn't imagine what I had done wrong. I felt like I couldn't breathe. As I reached the doorway, Mr. Young stepped aside, and gently closed the door behind himself. I backed up against the lockers, feeling trapped. I was fighting tears and trying to figure out what in the world I had done to have the Principal come and call me out of my eighth grade History class in front of everyone... I had never seen that happen before. Usually a message came to the teacher and she would send someone to the office who had committed some major school crime... and I never heard what happened to them after that... Maybe, just maybe... their parents were called and they got in major trouble at home... Daddy always said if he got a whuppin' at school, he'd get ready for another one at home. I wasn't sure if that would apply to us... to me.

Mr. Young closed the door to the classroom and walked a few steps down the hall out of earshot of other classroom doors. He stopped and turned to me and said very gently, "Norma, I need to talk with you about the Newsletter. We've had a complaint from some parents about a word you used in your story. I was wondering, do you know what "queer" means?"

I nodded. I was holding back tears. So that was it... Apparently, everyone else in the world knew something I didn't know and no one had ever bothered to clue me in on the mysterious and probably horrible secret meaning of the word "queer." I had read it in many stories and books; the text had never implied any meaning other than I had read in the dictionary the night before--"strange" or "odd."

"What do you think it means, Norma?" Mr. Young was still speaking softly, and looking at me in an encouraging, gentle manner.

I tried to answer him, but I couldn't for the tears in my throat. So I just turned away and ran away from him down the hall to the girls' bathroom, where he couldn't come in and get me. I was so glad there was no one in there. I cried and cried. I looked at myself in the metal mirror and saw how awful I looked.

In a little while I heard Mr. Young outside the girls' bathroom door, calling quietly, "Norma. Norma please come out. You are not in trouble, honey... Come out and talk to me."

So I went out there. We walked down the outside covered hallway between buildings to a quiet place at the end where no one ever would hear our conversation. I told him what I believed "queer" meant, according to the dictionary and the sense of it in stories and books I had read. He nodded.

"That's right, Norma," he said sadly. "It's just that sometimes people take perfectly good words and twist the meaning around to something not so good. I think that's what happened here. I know that you are absolutely innocent in your use of this word in your story...and by the way, your stories are very good. And all your teachers tell me you are at the top of your class. Your grades are perfect..."

He paused, and I just waited for him to tell me the Bad Meaning of queer. He never did tell me. He didn't say anything about telling my parents about this incident, so I didn't ask him. He suggested I have one of the teachers read my future writings before we published them. He was very sweet and kind. He never made me feel like I was being judged negatively.

I never asked my parents or friends about that word. I just pretended I knew everything, and, as Mr. Young had suggested, asked Mrs. Harris or another teacher to edit my newsletters. Years later when I learned a little about the seedy side of life from my husband's accounts of his younger years as well as from what eventually was broadcast on television, I connected the dots and remembered the day I had been so publicly embarrassed.

I said all that to say this: I see a big difference in the language of children these days and those days. I'm not saying that children in the 50's didn't hear and say (and do) a lot of bad words and stuff. Saying and doing bad things has been going on since Adam and Eve ate the apple. I'm just saying most kids didn't learn the bad stuff until the learning place moved from "out behind the barn" to "in front of the TV in the living room" and then to "anywhere that you have a device to help you stay connected..."

So to all my beloved grandchildren and great grandchildren, and their friends, I give you this little song to remind you the Lord wants you to be careful what you allow into your mind from media or friends:

"Watch your eyes, watch your eyes, what they see.
Watch your eyes, watch your eyes, what they see.
For the Father up above is looking down in tender love.
Watch your eyes, watch your eyes, what they see."

(I'm adding:)
And the same thing with your ears, what they hear.
And your hands, what they do (or write).
And your feet, where they go.
And REALLY watch your mouth, what it says.
Whether or not you're a talker, like me, be extra careful of the words you say. Sometimes you may not know what you're talking about. And someday, you're going to have to give an account to the Father up above. Sure is a good thing He is looking down in tender love...