Orcos (or’-kos): Swearing that a statement is true.
I always wondered what the connection might be between swearing something is true, and just plain swearing, as in “dammit.” How about a double swear: “I swear it’s true, dammit.!” But, like all things we say, we’ve got to be careful who we say it to. For example, my mother accused me of stealing my sister’s Mickey Mouse pencil. I responded “I swear I didn’t steal it, dammit.”
I had just learned how swear, so I wasn’t sure when and where to deploy it. I had learned how to swear at my friend Bruce’s house. He was rich and lived at the top of the hill. When we played there, his parents let us swear all we wanted. We sweared about everything: at lunch “Pass the fu*kin salt” or “Let’s watch some shit on TV” or “Where the hell’s the bathroom?” The only downside was Bruce’s sister. She kept trying to get me to come up to her room to see her horse pictures. The first time she asked I complied. We sat on her bed and looked at her pictures. When we were done, she got down on her hands and knees and made me ride her around her bedroom. She made a horse noise and reared up on her “hind” legs. I fell off and ran downstairs.
I found Bruce in the kitchen holding a steak knife. He was licking his lips and rocking the blade back and forth, making it flash under the kitchen lights. There was an open bottle of whiskey on the counter next to where he was standing. There were also two empty glasses sitting there. He said, “Let’s have a shot, or two, or three.” We were only 12 and I had never had alcohol. Then his sister came into the kitchen and slammed down tree shots in quick succession. She said, “My name is July and I’m an alcoholic.” She was 18, so I guessed it was legal for her to drink. But an alcoholic? Wow, she hadn’t wasted any time. She wanted to play horses agin, but I said “No.” She threw a box of Cheerios at me and stalked outside to the garden. She lit a hand-rolled cigarette and stared singing the Neil Diamond song about cracking roses.
I took a shot of whiskey and gulped it down. The world seemed to be a better place, so I drank another shot. I think I was a little drunk. So, I said “I’m goin’ the fu*k home.” Bruce said, “I don’t give a fu*k, go ahead.” I was glad to get out of there and back to my normal family—mom and dad, my older sister Molly and my baby brother, Nestor.
Getting back to the missing Mickey Mouse pencil episode:
For weeks, I had been taking the pencil and hiding it around the house and “helping” my sister find it. For me, it was a game, for my sister it was a total pain in the ass. At some point she told mom about the pencil game, saying I stole her pencil. That’s when my mother interrogated me and I gave the solemn oath including a swear word. My mother went crazy: “Not only are you lying, but you’re swearing too! I’m telling your father.” “Oh shit,” I thought, My father’s a gun nut and he’s been drawing his gun in the living room and aiming it at Nestor’s bassinet, yelling “Come out with yours hands up you little piggy!” Then, he would throw Nestor’s velour fuzzy rabbit at the bassinet.
My mom told my dad I was a liar and a swearer. He said, “Don’t worry I’ll get that little piggy! We’ll be eatin’ him for dinner tonight.” At that point my mom realized that dad had landed in cloud cuckoo land. Mom called 911 and they came and took dad away after he shot up the TV. After he’d been hauled off, I said to mom: “That was fu*ckin’ brilliant calling 911. You saved our lives.” Mom said, “Fu*kin’ A. He was out of his goddam mind.”
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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