Only in America...

(Being The Story of a Tempest in a Pee-Pee-Pot)

Only in America would there be such an infernal uproar over a single word in an award-winning book.
I'm referring to the children's book The Higher Power of Lucky, by Susan Patron, judged the most worthy contribution to children's literature for last year by the American Library Association and thus awarded the Newbery Medal. This despite the word "scrotum" on the very! first! page! after a dog is snakebitten on the...uh...well, here's the quotum (sorry):

“Scrotum sounded to Lucky like something green that comes up when you have the flu and cough too much,” the book continues. “It sounded medical and secret, but also important.”

I like that imagery. I've had the flu and coughed so hard I'm pretty sure I did bring up a scrotum or two. Green, no less. Besides, I've always thought that was a weird, neat word. Say it with me, now: SCRO-TUM. Neat word.

How ironic that a book written by a public librarian is now being banned in libraries all over the United States, solely on the basis of a single word denoting a part of the body shared by every male human being (and dog) on the planet. Ironic, but hardly surprising. After all, we're talking about the same country that went temporarily insane over a nipple on television. Nipple: you know, the thing that kids far too young to read are intimately familiar with?

The Higher Power of Lucky was written for a fifth and sixth grade audience. At that age, I'm pretty sure I had no idea what a scrotum was: I called that body part my bag. As in, "Ow! He bagged me!" I would have been gratified (and, let's face it, a tad amused: scrotumscrotumscrotum!) to have a real honest-to-goodness word to describe my nut sack. I wouldn't have been scared of the word, or scarred by it: I had read Where Did I Come From long before that, and been exposed to 'penis' and 'vagina' ("rhymes with North Carolina") without incident.

I'm pretty sure most other kids my age--yes, even then--would have been the same way upon learning what a "scrotum" was. It would immediately have become an insult to be hurled, of course: a word that unique pretty much has to be, especially since it seems to upset adults so much. But it would still be just a word. "There are no bad words", says George Carlin. "Bad thoughts....bad intentions...and words." Scrotum is not a bad word. How can it be? It

(a) comes directly from the Latin (cognate with Old English skrud, "garment": just imagine yourself dressed in a shimmering floor-length scrotum!);
and (b) describes a part of the human body--the same body, for those devout Christians most likely to object to the very notion of a scrotum, "made in the image and likeness of God": does God have a scrotum?

Now, of course, there's a better-than-average chance some girl has seen your fifth or sixth grader's scrotum. At the very least. I can certainly understand the discomfort that thought might cause. But this uproar about the word, not even the picture? Ridiculous, in that way that only Americans ever seem to be.

Q. What's a yankee?
A. It's a quickie, only you're alone.