Not too long ago, a friend invited me to watch "Barbarians at the Gate" videotaped from cable in her home, and I accepted, knowing that the movie had received rave reviews and been nominated for various awards. Besides, one of my favorite actors, James Garner, was the star!

We didn't watch the entire film, because we both got sick and tired of listening to coarse and vulgar dialog, with every other word starting with "f...".

A year or two ago, I went to a movie theatre (for the first time since "Amadeus"!) and sat through a showing of "Grand Canyon", which I thought could have been excellent were it not (again) for the filthy dialog.

Last week, I went with friends to our local movie complex to see "The Firm", a big box-office film taken from a best-selling book which I had read and enjoyed. I guess, when reading, one can somehow visually skim over the offensive words, but it's more difficult to block them out of one's hearing.

What ever happened to our beautiful English language? Is it a generational thing? I don't think so. I know many people half my age who do not talk like that as a matter of course, which is not to say that they may not be given to an outburst of such language when pressed by stressful happenings in their lives...I've been known to do the same! My theory is that it is all part of the cynicism and loss of innocence we have seen over the last thirty or so years. God knows, I don't want to sound like some kind of moralist because I am not qualified for that role, but I cannot help but contrast my first exposure to "unacceptable" language with the exposure my grandchild has every day.

My father was a railroad man, a dispatcher for the Southern Pacific in El Paso, Texas. He began his career as a telegrapher, and in later years, he set up a breadboard with a telegraph key fastened to it, operated by a battery. The idea was that he would teach my brother how to use the key and learn Morse code. My brother, I might add, quickly lost interest in this worthy endeavor, but I was fascinated by it and secretly planned to learn how to use it myself.

One of our closest family friends was Stan Caufield, who worked with Daddy when they were just starting out. The two of them would occasionally snigger like naughty school boys as they sang a song about their chosen career...it went something like this: Rip rap ree, who are we? We are the knights of the telegraph key. Cabbage, cabbage, corned beef hash! Three dots, four dots, two dots, dash!

One day, when I was about thirteen, Mother and I were at loose ends, so this seemed to be a good opportunity to satisfy my desire to learn Morse code. She agreed to do what she could to help, and we dug out the old breadboard. The chart showing the letters and their accompanying "dits" and "dahs" was fastened to the board. So we started through it, learning that "A" was a combination of one "dit" and one "dah". We worked at it for quite a while before one of us got the idea and started giggling as we decided to decipher the last line of the song that Stan and Daddy used to sing.

"Hmmmm", I said, "three dots means 'S'", and Mother looked a little thoughtful. "Four dots is 'H'", I continued, and Mother looked a little anxious. When I got to "two dots means 'I'", she panicked and suddenly realized what a dash must stand for, but gamely let me finish. "What does that mean?", I asked, and got only a weak "I don't know" in reply.

It was years before I understood what "s-h-i-t" meant!.