Dear Editor,

I think it’s very important not just for me, but for all Jamaicans to know and understand the origins of these words whose use we are being arrested and charged for as crimes. I believe the time has come for a real debate as to the origin of these words and expressions. Let the people understand why they are branded as bad words, by whom, and for what reason.

Right now I believe we all are living blindly by these words, and not so much the words themselves, but the way they are expressed. Often they are said with such force they seem to somehow pierce holes in the people they are used against or towards, rather than they being something indecent or bad.

There are 26 letters in the alphabet, and if one is bad let’s take it out and see what is left.

As far as I see it, I can change all those so-call bad words that we come to know in Jamaica and replace them with other words.

Still, I believe that it’s time for our Government to abolish these laws that continue to criminalise such expressions. I am sure that if the Government abolished them they may be used less and less, because the ‘daring’ will be lost from them; they will mean nothing because they will just become commonplace and regular words, so people will not pay any attention to them when they hear them.

We must all educate each other and ourselves to find out exactly those words’ origin, and who labelled them bad words and why. Let’s stop being blind to these things and open the eyes of our people.

From what I have heard, many of them are from slavery, and our slave masters couldn’t understand what was being said, which was why they forbade slaves to speak them and deemed them bad words.

I don’t know how factual this claim is, so I ask those who can to find out their origin and enlighten the rest of us.

Robert Clarke

rclarke88@hotmail.com