Daily writing prompt

If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?

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If I could permanently ban a word from general usage, it would be the word “ban”, because then no one else will be able to ban any other word. Ban will be banned so you couldn’t ban any other word.

“I want to ban so and so word,” you’d say.

“You’re under arrest for using the word ban,” the moral police would say.

And the world will be a better place because words will lose their power. Anyone can say anything so no bad words or hateful words will have much power.

Bad words get their power from the taboo we place on their use. Hateful words get their power from the reaction we have when they are said to us. Banning such words might stop the general public from using these words freely but the really mean and hateful people will still use them in situations where they know they can get away with it. And because these words would be rare, it will just make them more powerful when they are used.

I know this because I used to be a sailor. A marine engineer to be precise. And as everyone knows, sailors use the most salty language. In the 4 year college I went to, to become a marine engineer; one of the unofficial training we got was on the use of the most offensive language one could come up with.

At first it was really shocking to hear such profanity being used so brazenly. Every sentence was required to have at least three explicit words or phrases; one in the beginning, one at the end, and one in the middle to tie it all up together. We didn’t leave any abuse or curse or cuss word out. In fact we created a bunch of new ones. Mostly about “your mother” and “her lady parts”. But because these words were used by everyone, everywhere, at all times, soon they stopped offending us. Words that would cause a fist fight in a pub, were used endearingly towards our friends.

What this training meant was that when I joined my first ship and we were out in the middle of the ocean and the chief engineer was getting angry at me and throwing some spicy words my way, it didn’t affect me at all. I could focus on the actual criticism and not the packaging it was delivered in. It made me a better marine engineer. Those who didn’t go through such a training, were really offended for their first few sails, till they as well got used to the language.

If you don’t like a word and want to make it powerless, make it mandatory! Or at least, don’t ban it. That will just make it more powerful.