AN ITALIAN BAN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 156, 3 July 1937, Page 21

AN ITALIAN BAN.

EMOTIONAL SWEARING I

IS IT GOOD FOR SOLDIERS?

NO STOLID VICE,

(By MALACHI BOYD.)

If drill instructors in the Italian Army < havo the same colourful eloquence as ; thoso of British armies, the world j should sympathise with them for their latest loss of liberty. The Rome correspondent of "The Times" reported ( last week that General Pariani, the Under-Secretary for War, has decided to stamp out swearing among Italian troops. The reason for this humourless edict is *ili<it General Pariani believes swearing to bo a Communist custom and a sign of deficient self-discipline. Any soldier, because of the automatism imposed upon him by his calling, has little enough opportunity for selfexpression as it is, and to deprive him of frco use of his tongue is an outrageous kind of cruelty that would not be tolerated in a democratic country. Harsh as this law will be for the common soldier, it i 3 difficult to see how the presumably volatile Italian drill instructor will continue his exacting labour in comfort if his cumulative irritations are not to be relieved periodically by satisfying oral explosions. "The Naughty Trumpeter." These instructors must be placed in much the same position as the English colonel, once noted for spectacular profanity. His outbursts were blistering enough to give offence, such offence that he was in danger of losing command. The day came for an inspection by the Commander-in-Chief. A trumpeter was told to give a warning blast when the official car came into view. He failed to do so. The colonel galloped down the line;; his prospective victim quailed, but all tlie infuriated officer said was: Oh> you naughty, naughty, naughty, little trumpeter." . Somehow, I doubt whether Latins would be capable of such exquisite control. Of course, General Pariani is fanatically delighted when he affirms that wearing is a Communist custom, and he p also taking far too much for granted ivhen lie assumes that swearing is a of weakened self-discipline. ■ The is torical fact is that soldiers have always sworn; and there is Shakespeare s , authority for certain looseness of tongue | among military men of his time he portrays the soldier as being u of strange oaths." Silence in Suffering. Anv way, this subject of swearing has been considered important enoug hold the attention of at least two livin writers. Mr. Eric Partridge, a Ne\v Zeulander by birth, and the greatest,

contemporary authority on slang, has written essays on. "language," Mr. Robert Graves, author of "Good-bye To All That," and a poet of stature, has written a witty and durable book on the subject. His conclusion is: "Swearing has a definite physiological function; for after childhood relief in tears and wailing is rightly discouraged, and groans are also considered a signal of extreme weakness. Silence under suffering is usually impossible. The nervous system demands some expression that' does not affect towards cowardice and feebleness, and as a nervous stimulant in a crisis, swearing is unequalled." Mr. Graves' view is more or less endorsed by Laurence Sterne in "Tristram Shandy." There is this conversation between Tristram's father, his Uncle Toby and Dr. Slop: — "Small curses, Dr. Slop, upon great occasions," quoth my father, "are but so much waste of our strength and our soul's health to no manner of purpose." "I own it," replied Dr. Slop. "They are like sparrow shot," quoth my Uncle Toby, "fired against a bastion." "They serve," continued my father, "to stir the humours but carry off none of their acrimony; for my part, I seldom curse or swear at all—l hold it bad; but if I fall into it by surprise I generally retain so much presence of mind as to make it answer my purpose, that is, I swear on until I find myself easy."

"Peculiar to Communists." In the present heated state of the world, when the adherents of conflicting political philosophies are so pathetically eager to discern hideous evil in the hearts of opponents, it is inevitable that real or fancied wickedness which they wish to cast from themselves should be attacked first as a vicious characteristic of their opponents. So the purifying General Pariani has to attack swearing by declaring it a vice peculiar to Communists. Tn doing so he ignores the fact that Russian Communists on the whole are far too phlegmatic to swear. Broadly speaking, the Russian is as stolid as an ox. Emotional explosiveness, which is the foundation of the most lurid kinds of swearing, is a Latin quality which could be suppressed only with difficulty, and, perhaps, with great psychological harm. If General Pariani only knew it, he is coming closer to the hated Bolsheviks in attempting to suppress swearing. If their somewhat repellant fatricidal activities may be overlooked momentarily, the Bolsheviks otherwise are making a grim cult of Puritanism. Excesses of the past are now frowned on by mass opinion, and this reaction from iicense has taken the form of extreme moral severity. I was told in Moscow two years ago that they held humiliating mock trials in the factories of men who had committed offences we would regard as venial at

worst. ' It is beyond doubt that Italian soldiers would be less like comrades of the detested Red Army if General Pariani continued to allow them the emotional solace of what Shakespeare has described so well as "A good mouthfilling oath."