Scuzzbucket: More specific than F word

Scuzzbucket. Noun. Slang. A repulsive or disgusting person or thing.” It’s not a word you hear often. It’s been replaced, along with so many other specifically descriptive words, with the all-purpose F word which has limited the vocabularies of huge segments of our population. Scuzzbucket is a much more precise choice. As are sleazebag and scumball.

Take politicians, for example. All those candidates who tell flat-out lies about their opponents are scuzzbuckets. Who lift one statement by their opponent out of context so that it is totally misleading. Who uses innuendo. And all those candidates who specialize in fear-mongering. Not only are they scuzzbuckets, they are double scuzzbuckets. Along with media personalities who report political scuzzbucketry as if it were truth.

Who else deserves the scuzzbucket label? At the very top of the list are child molesters. And those who are trusted to care for children but instead hurt them. Break their bones. Stomp on their stomachs. Bash in their heads. Burn them with cigarettes. Hold them under scalding water. We read about them every day. People who are just plain mean to children. Belittling them. Denying them everyday comforts and pleasures.

Bullies are scuzzbuckets. People who lie and steal are scuzzbuckets. People who cheat. On their taxes. On others who aren’t as smart as they are. Crooks who specialize in victimizing the elderly — who appear to be helpful and friendly but have hearts meaner than junkyard dogs. Who frighten their victims into silence. Even worse are the ones who old people trust and then they take their money, their possessions, even abuse them. Sometimes they are members of their own family.

Gang members who shoot each other, who terrorize neighborhoods, who vandalize are scuzzbuckets.

Ministers and politicians who castigate vehemently against a particular sin and then are themselves caught in that very act.

Someone who steals a young woman’s prosthetic legs from the foot of her bed, as happened in Oklahoma City years ago.

Minor league scuzzbuckets offend with such acts as tossing trash out their car windows, emptying their ashtrays in parking lots and spitting in public.

Would it make a difference if the most serious scuzzbuckets were put in stocks on the courthouse square, like in early American history, with big signs listing their repulsive acts?

“Burned 4-year old with cigarette.” “Cheated senior citizen out of bank account.” “Stole woman’s legs.” “Defeated my opponent with lies and fear-mongering.”

Scuzzbucket wasn’t in my vocabulary until I went to college. I didn’t learn it in freshman English. I learned it from the ex-Marine who became my husband. Apparently, Marines encounter a lot of scuzzbuckets because it is a word he used a lot.

The next time you’re in a lagging conversation, throw out this question: “Who’s the scuzziest scuzzbucket you ever knew? You may be surprised to learn you know some of the same people.

Mary McClure lives in Lawton and writes a weekly column for The Lawton Constitution.