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Fuck... ...is such a wonderful word. Ever since the theme of this issue was announced, the song from My Fair Lady that starts off... “Words! Words! Words! I hear nothing but words...” has been going through my head.
And fuck is such a wonderful word. First of all it is the only word in the English language that can be used as all parts of speech:
intrjection: Oh, fuck!
noun: The fuck was incredible.
pronoun: The fuck walked into the room. (It takes the place of a noun.)
verb: I will fuck you until your eyes cross.
adjective: He was such a fucking jerk.
adverb: They were so fucking happy they could cry.
conjunction: They were tired fuck they went to sleep.
preposition: I couldn’t think of one for that; maybe you can.
Fuck! The fucking fucker fucked the fuck; fuck the fucker did it fuckingly well.
Shock and Awe. Not only is fuck such a versatile word, but it also has shock value. In the ‘60’s and ‘70’s “appropriate language” was a major issue in schools. I know a teacher who started off each year with “You will not say damn, shit, hell, crap, or fuck in this classroom.” The ironic thing is that the sock value of her saying that without blushing or stumbling was enough to impress the students that she never did have many problems with “inappropriate language” in the class. One year, when she finally did have to write up a student for using fuck in the class too often, the principal tried to get her to change the discipline slip that went to the parents: he wanted her to write F*#@ and not fuck. She didn’t. The discipline slip went out as she wrote it, and the parents were suitably shocked.
It’s just a word. Fuck is a very old word, recorded in English since the 15th century. Contrary to popular urban legends, fuck has no hidden meanings. It is not a acronym for anything. It is simply a good, old-fashioned English word that found its way into the language through one of the Germanic languages which mean either “copulate” or “penis.”
As an undergraduate in the ‘60’s I was a theatre major. I never heard fuck used as frequently before or since. I became immune to the shock value of the word and used it frequently in conversing with my fellow students. For me, there was no more shock or awe. It became “just another word.” I learned that you don’t have to blush when you say it; neither do you have to use it frequently for emphasis.
The clue to using fuck effectively. To be truly valuable, fuck has to be used with discretion. I know that one young lady was denied promotion because she used fuck too often. Even though she worked on the shipping dock, even though she was well qualified for the supervisory job, her indiscriminant use of fuck caused her to be passed over.
When fuck is used, it needs to have been used seldom enough to shock the listener. It worked for the teacher. It works for the woman who uses it very seldom. But we don’t have to be afraid to use it. Said to a lover, it can be a turn-on. Said in anger, it can definitely make your point. Polite and professional society dictate that fuck is not every other word out of our mouth. When it does come out, the fact you have not used it before really gets their attention.
Live well and prosper,
Jewel
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