Serenity Now!

I participate frequently in the Writer’s Digest forums and came across a thread today about vulgar language. It caught my attention and I responded there with basically the same thing I’m posting here. 

Let’s talk specifically about the F word since that’s what most people think of when they think about ‘vulgar language’. There’s a great documentary called f**k. That’s how it’s spelled if anyone wants to check it out. It’s a series of interviews with people from Ron Jeremy to Pat Boone. Sam Donaldson is in it as are linguists, lawyers and laymen.

No word should be offensive. It’s the power one gives words that make them offensive. For instance, my manager at work uses the word “effing” instead of f**k. What would happen if it were reversed? What if “effing” held the same power as f**k and he said f**k instead of “effing”? Would “effing” then be vulgar?

William Shakespeare said, “Tis needful that the most immodest word be looked upon and learned.” Voltaire said, ” I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” And Bob Dylan said, “Love is just a four letter word.”

The word first appeared in print in 1475 in a poem called, “Flen Flyys”. The poem attacks a particular group of monks. It reads, “They are not in heaven because they are f**king the wives of Ely”.

Robert Burns used it in his poetry, Lord Rochester used it in his poetry. It appears in “Ulysses” and “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”. The supreme court once handed down a verdict in a free speech decision saying, “One man’s vulgarity is often another man’s lyric.” On October 3rd, 1973, George Carlin observed that there are more ways to describe “dirty words” than there are dirty words.  Mel Brooks said, “If presidents don’t do it to their wives, they do it to their country.”

Society has arbitrarily deemed certain words obscene, which has only given them power. F**k is possibly the most versatile word in the English language. Present participle of the word, which is f**king, is an intensifier. It can be used as a noun, adjective and verb. It can be an intransitive verb, passive verb, transitive verb, and an interjection.

If you think about it, what is more vulgar? Sending men and women overseas to blow the heads off people, or the word f**k?

“If you can’t say f**k, you can’t say f**k the government.” ~ Lenny Bruce