Watch your language

They laughed when the newspaper said that someone has started an organization called Curseaholics Anonymous. But the problem addressed under this playful title is not funny. The amount of casual profanity heard in America is beginning to make the dialogue in best-sellers seem realistic. It is rather engaging to hear of a young man who decides to reform and bring others with him, the way the members of Alcoholics Anonymous support each other in staying away from liquor.

Paul White Jr. of Cambridge, Massachusetts, reportedly got the idea of Curseaholics after he was fired from his parking-lot job over a cursing episode. The people who need it most may not flock to his banner. But the fact that anyone is even trying to clean up the verbal landscape might make a li tterer think twice. A discreet wow seems in order.