`SHAG' SHIELD NEEDED TO PROTECT 10-YEAR-OLD'S EARS.

Byline: Wendy Dager Local view

THE 10-year-old was peeved. I wouldn't let her rent the first ``Austin Powers'' film because of all its references to shagging.

Movies have been a major area of contention with the 10-year-old and me for the last year or so. I don't let her watch anything R-rated, and PG has to meet with my approval.

I also don't let her wear halter tops, eye makeup or platform shoes that make her taller than her mother. She is not allowed to ride a bicycle without a helmet, swim without an adult watching her, or ride in the front passenger seat of my car, which has an air bag.

I am now dealing with the fact that I am ``The Meanest Mom on Earth,'' as I have this peculiar and unnatural desire to protect my child from that which might harm her.

After being in the Fifth Grade Class From Hell this past year, she feels that hearing bad language from boys and sex talk from girls entitles her to be able to watch films with overt sexual references.

She cannot accept why I will not let her watch Austin Powers since ``Because I said so'' is not enough of an answer, while her reason of ``I hear worse at school'' seems just as adequate. One boy even asked if the colorful VW Bug on her T-shirt was the Shagmobile, a reference to the new Austin Powers movie, ``The Spy Who Shagged Me.''

And so I learn that my concern for her tender ears is for naught. ``Shagging'' has not only become the euphemism of choice when speaking about the act of sex, but there are also variations on the word, such as ``shagadelic,'' an adjective which means that whatever object it describes is better than sex.

The word is so R-rated that I wonder if, in the planned live-action remake of the '70s kids cartoon ``Scooby-Doo'', they are going to have to change the character name Shaggy to something less risque.

``Shag,'' it seems, has taken on bigger and stupider proportions than the creators of ``The Spy Who Shagged Me'' have hoped, thanks to a marketing campaign that includes actor Mike Meyer's Austin Powers character hawking products and services for companies such as Virgin (also a hilarious word) Airlines.

When I was a child, my mother had a shag carpet, which she raked, in order to keep its fibers up. A friend recently e-mailed me to find out if it was still correct to use the baseball term ``shagging balls in the outfield.'' And, I was forced, in the '70s, to have a shag haircut, which made me look to my horror like a boy.

The slang word ``shag'' in its new form has entered our lexicon because it is cute and funny and dirty. Even though it originated in England, it is something that goes beyond the rapt fascination of American Anglophiles, who have become used to Jane Austen and William Shakespeare through the bastardization of cinema.

Unlike excerpted classic literature, however, ``shag'' is not appropriate to have splattered across headlines and blaring over commercials, for all to see, including young children to whom irritated mothers have to keep explaining these words.

The 10-year-old enters junior high in the fall. Next year, if she asks me what it means to ``light up a fag,'' then I shall be forced to start home schooling.