Cuss Control by James V. O’Connor.
Three Rivers Press, 2000. $12.95 — 239 pp.

Joseph Epstein, who has taught at Northwestern University since 1974 and who served as editor of The American Scholar for 22 years, is one of the great essayists of our time. Though not particularly well known to the general public, Epstein has written 13 books in the last three decades, many of them being collections of his essays. He has written on divorce, ambition, sports, ethnic groups, and literature.

Now Epstein has written Snobbery: The American Version. As in his other books — I have read only A Line Out For A Walk, The Middle Of My Tether, and Ambition — Epstein writes clearly and concisely, draws frequently from personal experience, and leaves the reader feeling both entertained and informed.

Epstein begins Snobbery by telling us of his own experiences with snobs and snobbish behavior, including some of his own excursions into snobbery. Epstein writes:

But, pathetic truth to confess, I am also a little pleased that my son went to Stanford, for nothing better, I fear, than snobbish reasons. I am too often a little pleased with myself on other snobbish fronts. Allow me to present a few candid snapshots. Here I am giving a lecture at an English university — how nice! Here I am being praised in print by a writer I have long admired in a magazine of high status — splendid! Here I am being paid obeisance by the wealthy— and lo, the world seems a just and good place!

Epstein then comes up with a working definition of a snob as

...someone out to impress his betters or depress those he takes to be his inferiors, and sometimes both; someone with an exaggerated respect for social position, wealth, and all the accouterments of status; someone who accepts what he reckons to be the world’s valuation on people and things, and acts — sometimes cruelly, sometimes ridiculously — on that reckoning; someone, finally, whose pride and accomplishment never come from within but always await the approving judgment of others.

For the rest of the book, Epstein turns to an analysis of different types of snobs. He discusses job snobs (artists, even unsuccessful artists, and entrepreneurs hold sway these days); class snobs (“Members of the so-called educated class really think of themselves as the enlightened class”); college snobs (“Snobbery often resides most comfortably where substance is absent, and for a long while now snobbery has deeply infected higher education, among faculty and students and parents alike”); intellectual snobs (“The New York Review...was the journal of choice for those happy few...left-leaning, right-living intellectuals, happily safe atop a cloud of nearly celestial snobbery”); wine and food snobs (bottles of bad wine, writes Pierre-Antoine Rovani, with labels reading ‘Grand Cru’ or ‘Pomerol’ can be sold “in small quantities in a place like New York, where there are lots of idiots”).

With wit and literary insights and self-honesty, Epstein dissects snobbery and lets us see why it exists and why human beings find it so important. As he states in the bibliography, he draws heavily on his own experiences, both with people and with books. He has a wonderful way of sometimes surprising the reader, of literally making him stop, of making a light bulb pop over his head. Near the end of his book, for example, Epstein writes that in his everyday actions he is not a snob. He is snobbish, he says, only in his thoughts and how he views other people. This is the sort of snobbishness practiced and felt, I suspect, by many of us.

If the recipient didn’t take it amiss, this book simply by the quality of its insights and style would make a fine Christmas gift.

The other day, while watching a PG movie with my seven-year old son, I was struck by how much swearing went into the film. The actors used the word ass a score of times, d—n three times, s—t several times, and G-d—n once.

There were times in my life when swearing was commonplace. In the seventh and eighth grade I went away to a military school where we swore as easily as we breathed. The habit I acquired then, one that was later reinforced by college, has never completely left me, so that to this day, when I am under pressure, oaths and cuss words all too readily come to my lips. Indeed, I greatly fear dying some day in an automobile crash, for rather than meeting my Maker with a prayer on my lips I am reasonably certain that I would be shouting the “S” word at the top of my lungs.

Hollywood producers, your acid-tongued reviewer, and perhaps a loved one in your own life might do well to heed Cuss Control, James V. O’Connor’s complete book on how to curb your cursing. In this volume O’Connor tells us what my mother used to tell me, namely that people who swear all the time are only demonstrating their limited vocabulary and their lack of imagination.

Suppose, O’Connor asks, you say that a certain room looks like s—t. What do you mean by that? What does it say about the room? Is it messy? In need of a decorator or a coat of paint? And what exactly does it say about you that you say that about the room?

O’Connor’s chapter titled “The F Word: Stop Me Before I Say It Again” reminded me of a time in Boston when I was helping a friend move a piece of furniture. I knew that he enjoyed using the F word, but from Boston out to the suburbs and back the entire dialogue went like this: “I am so f—-ing tired of this f—-ing weather, man, it really f—-s me up, what with my f—-ing sinuses and f—-ing nose. Man, you got to watch the f—- out for the f—-ing drivers on this f—-ing road, cause they are f—-ing crazy. They’ll f—- you up if you f—-ing let them.”

An hour of this dreary dialogue left me, as you may imagine, pretty f—-ed up myself.

O’Connor uses numerous testimonies from those who curse, who don’t curse, and who have given up cursing to make his points about the inherent stupidity behind most of our swearing. He demonstrates why cursing creates a poor image and how it corrupts the English language. He explains why we feel the urge to swear and how we may kick the habit. He also gives many alternatives to swearing.

Incidentally, O’Connor also encourages you to read newspapers such as the one you are reading because the newspaper is one medium that still avoids profanity (and my apologies here to any readers whom the above review offended; I tried to stay within the bounds of good taste).

It’s Advent right now, the time of anticipation before Christmas, the season of comfort and joy, of goodwill toward all men. If you’re experiencing mall rage or road rage or in-law rage or some other rage, and if you’re giving way to that rage with an over-reliance on swear words, pick up a copy of O’Connor’s book, follow its wise precepts, and join the season.

(Jeff Minick lives in Waynesville. He can be reached at saintsbookco@aol.com)