I came across a delicious little off-the-cuff article by David Sedaris in The Guardian about all those word that have become too politically incorrect to be spoken out loud, and and have to be rendered as "the initial-word" in polite conversation.
The N-word was probably the first to be given this treatment, and is probably still the most sensitive and sacrosanct, despite the fact that the majority of the black population of North America seem to positively over-use it. The C-word is perhaps not far behind, and while it is usually used for that part of the female anatomy that remains to this day the most shocking and risqué swearword, it is also used to stand for "cancer", "Chink", even, apparently, "commitment". D is for "divorce", E for "evolution" in some rarefied circles. F does not usually stand for "fuck", except in the more prudish parts of the mid-west, but is more likely to be used for "faggot" in New York City. The G-word is, I am assured, "gypsy", which is now pejorative and deprecated. And L? No, not "lesbian", which is still an acceptable term, for now at least, but "love", the feeling that dare not speak its name.
Ah, the power, and occasional pusillanimity, of language...
UPDATE
Hilariously, Burger King has just been called out by a bunch of Conservative American moms for using another D-word in an ad. The culprit. You probably won't guess it, so I'll tell you: "damn". Is that even a curse word any more? What lives these people must lead..
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