I wish to state emphatically that IMHO there is absolutely nothing wrong with fuck.
I’ll take a big helping please. Make that two scoops.
I wish to state emphatically that IMHO there is absolutely nothing wrong with fuck.
I’ll take a big helping please. Make that two scoops.
Let’s suppose Little Honey said the word fuck, she would be told to watch her mouth.
Let’s suppose Little Honey said the the word nigger, she would be sent to her room and grounded for a week.
The fact that some people cannot complete a full sentence without using fuck several times, kind of diminishes the shock value of the word.
Says who? If I bang my elbow, I might say “fuck,” I might say “damn it,” or I might just wince, suck in my breath, and not say anything at all. Shouting a word with stigma attached to it does not make my elbow hurt any less than if I’d chosen a more acceptable word.
George Carlin’s piece is killing me! Haven’t laughed this hard for a long time.
OP: there’s nothing wrong with the word. It’s just not acceptable in the cycle of educated elites. High class people don’t say lowly words such as this one.
Nothing wrong with fuck.
Say it all the time.
Do it all the time.
But I’d rather do it, than say it.
But that’s just me, YMMV.
verybdog, I’ve heard quite a bit of wonderfully colorful swearing from the educated elites that I know. What’s that old saying 'bout profanity being the last refuge of the inarticulate? I don’t belive it applies. Swearing makes language much more verstitle and entertaining.
Lissa - me too! These are good old English words, of ancient origin.
Don’t want to cut and paste too much so click here for the rest of the info.
banning the word is stupid as fuck
No, but if you turn “nigger” into “black person” or “African-American”, even though the two words mean the same thing. Why? Because both “nigger” and “fuck” have connotations that “black person” and “have sex with” do not. They are offensive to most people. This isn’t due to the intrinsic nature of either word…it’s because both words have gained this connotation by regularly being used offensively. If, as Soup Nazi suggests, the word “sife” became seen as offensive, and was continuously used with the intention to offend people, it would be as offensive as the word “fuck” is now.
Yes, but “nigger” is a disparaging term for a black person. By its very definition, it’s meant as an insult. “African-American” doesn’t compare.
“Fuck,” OTOH, can mean a host of things. Some of those things are offensive, some not. It’s all about the context the word is used in. “Fuck you, you piece of shit” is far more offensive than “I can’t start the fucking car.”
If you restricted every word that could be used in an offensive way, we’d have a pretty boring (and incomplete) language.
It wasn’t invented with that purpose. It’s become disparaging because it’s used in a disparaging way. Likewise, while “Fuck you” is more offensive than “I locked my fucking keys in the car”, most people consider both sentences offensive. For whatever reason, the word has become unacceptable to use in polite conversation in any context.
I find it interesting how some words gain offensive qualities and others don’t, and at different levels.
For example, there was pit thread maybe a few months ago, about some woman who was either a child killer or abuser or something. The usual posts were made, “I hope someone fucking kills her slowly!” and such things. Someone then wrote something like “Yeah, I wish someone would beat that cunt to death with basball bat!”
Someone actually took offense at the use of the word ‘cunt’!!! You can threaten to torture a person to death, but don’t use the C word! That’s not nice!
Hilarious.
I think your grandson has his swearing confused He might be thinking of the origin of the “two fingered salute” - a popular swearing gesture in the UK (but not in the US IIRC). Think of a V-sign, but with the hand facing inwards rather than outwards. This gesture supposedly originated during a war with the French - you need two fingers to fire a bow properly and either the British or the French (I can’t remember which, I’m afraid) had the idea of cutting off one of the fingers of the enemies when they caught them, so that they would not be able to fight again (hey, it’s better than just killing them). The two-fingered salute was a kind of “Look I’ve got two fingers! Yah boo sucks to you!” gesture. Nowadays, it just means “Up yours!”
I’m very fond of the two-fingered salute and try to use it as often as possible, mainly for comedy value.
More historical stuff of interest.
It wasn’t? According to dictionary.com:
So it’s an alteration of a non-offensive word to make it offensive. I see no evidence that “nigger” was ever used to indicate anything other than derision.
Who are “most people?” Little old ladies? Almost everyone I know (I’m 24) uses the word “fuck” in general conversation. The only time we don’t is when we’re around much older people who we think would be offended.
Oh for heaven’s sake. :rolleyes:
Cecil covered this whole bow shooting thing already.
Well, here, from about 3/4 of the way down the page:
http://www.wordorigins.org/wordorn.htm
That fits with other things I’ve read (which I don’t have a cite for now, unfortunatley), which said that, in the middle of the 19th century, it was seen as vulgar and a mark of the uneducated, but not offensive in itself.
Maybe what we’re seeing with “fuck” is that it’s going the other way, and that it’s going to stop being considered offensive.
Interesting link, CaptainAmazing. Thanks.
You’re probably right. I just wish MTV and radio would wise up to it so they stop butchering great songs with long gaps of silence and garbled words.
Alan Smithee - it’s possible to dispell ignorance without the rolleyes and snarky comment, thus avoiding being a condescending arse.