Watch Your Language

Last week it was Gordon Brown, England's prime minister, whose tongue got himself in trouble when he called a senior a "bigoted woman" after she took him to task while he was campaigning. This week's public official who deserves the "foot in mouth" award is Conservative senator Nancy Ruth who stunned international development advocates on Monday when she told them to "shut the f---up" on the issue of making abortion part of Canada's foreign maternal-health strategy. The fact that this women's rights advocate is also a United Church minister made the use of the F-bomb even more shocking.

Words have the power to bless and curse, to heal and hurt. In these two cases, a single incendiary word spoken in the heat of the moment may be enough to harm two solid political careers. In the U.K., for example, they are already calling Brown's gaffe "Bigotgate" and suggesting that he may not recover in his bid to be re-elected. In Canada we will have to see what Nancy Ruth's ultimate consequence will be. For now, Liberal status of women critic Anita Neville is demanding an apology from Senator Ruth for her "profane language."

Actually, Nancy Ruth's linguistic crime was not profanity, but crudity. I certainly don't want to defend her unwise choice of words. We all need to watch our language. But I always find it interesting when people get profanity and crudity confused, and when they get more upset about an Anglo-Saxon gutter word than taking God's name in vain. Neither is fitting, but the latter is definitely worse.