I just read Christopher Hitchen’s essay A Very, Very; Dirty
Word, published in Slate Magazine of July 2004.
In this essay Hitchen opines on the phrase Fuck Off,
claiming it was a legacy of the 
I am not saying that Hitchen was totally out of touch with
the world outside of elite Washington and Britain, and I do not know how he
dissected the roots and origin of Fuck Off; but I distinctly remember Fuck You
and the bird as a part of the 60’s revolution in this country (remembering Easy
Rider) – and a young girl in San Francisco yelled Fuck You at me in the airport
when I returned from Viet Nam (along with: how many babies have you killed?)
and I replied Fuck Off.
Now, I claim all the variations of the Fuck word as
primarily American.
Anyone my age can
remember George Carlin’s seven words you can’t say on television:
Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker and Tits.
‘The good churchgoing people’ were scandalized at Carlin’s proclamation
that these words existed, much less that someone would dare to utter them in
public; while the flower generation picked up on them and unpretentiously
wielded them for the shock factor they knew they could effect.
Actually this day and age I find the Fuck variations, along
with bitch, cunt and bastard colorless and trite. I actually think arcane Britain
In her book the female doctor Adelia is being held captive
by a necked man wearing deer antlers and sporting and erection – Adelia defused
the situation by unleashing a series of insult (curses): calling him a stinking
crap-hound; a turd-mouth; stench-sucking lummox; dressed like a dog’s beef; son
of a pox-ridden sow, and a betty-buttered mother’s boy; a jelly bag; snot-faced; arse-licking; goat fucking; bum-bellied; farting; turd-breathed apology. (She left out Shakespeare’s cream-faced
loon.)
The book is a great mystery read, but like the
dictionary when I was young, I couldn’t help but latch on the ‘rude words’
section.
I know I am not the first to express this, but there are few
enough words in the English language to emphasize expression, and no word
should be forbidden (censored.) ... and damnit - fuck off is ours.
Or in a more British vernacular:
Off we Fuck then,
the Ol’Buzzard
The problem with the overuse of many of these words is that they have nothing left when the occassion calls for something stronger. Listen to someone who uses Fuck as every second word, eg the Big Lebowski,and they sound simply ignorant.
ReplyDeleteThere is a time and a place for using the word Fuck. As Custer said Where the Fuck did all those Indians come from?
I am likely one of the worse offenders for overusing the word, "fuck".
ReplyDeleteBut, trust this sometimes drunken old master sergeant - there is not a phrase in the world that communicates your feelings with the same intensity that a simple, "fuck you" does.
Great post...
Ron