Yet you can't say fuck, a word known to virtually every English speaker, much less innocuous words like fart. But, at least in theory, there's hope for fuck.
Consider the wide range of dirty verbiage that you never would have heard on television as a child, words that now seem commonplace. "Dork, sucks, ass, bitch, slut, whore, fag--there's a whole variety of words that are now acceptable on cable TV and to a lesser extent on broadcast TV," says Timothy Jay. "TV today looks like movies of the '50s. We've got a lot of mild cursing."
Sucks might be the most intriguing example of a word that's lost much of its power to offend. If you grew up in the 1960s or '70s, this was a very dirty word--a harsh, guttural put-down uttered only by delinquents or those trying to emulate them.
But a few years ago, sucks's sinister reputation began to soften. TV personalities began saying it here and there to shock audiences--and the censors let them. Cartoon characters like Bart Simpson, Beavis, and Butt-head routinely use it, and only the strictest parents turn off the sets. Saying something sucks isn't likely to get you in a lot of trouble these days.
Kids in the audience still crack up when Butt-head mutters, "This sucks," but it's not altogether clear that the little tots understand what he means, other than knowing it's synonymous with "undesirable." Jay recently spent time observing eight-year-olds to study their use of curses. "These little kids were laughing like Beavis and Butt-head and using 'sucks,'" he reports. "I don't think it's a bad word to them. Saying it is something their parents just don't want them to do."
Those same kids may grow up thinking of sucks as a harmless oath. In fairness, plain-old suck is another matter. After all, you don't hear Butt-head saying, "Hey Beavis--you suck." Censors aren't amused by usages where the sexual connotation is unmistakable.
But shouldn't fuck be held to the same double standard?
Let's face it: fuck doesn't always mean fuck. For instance, in the sentence I'd sure like to fuck Betty Lou, the meaning of the infinitive verb form is unambiguous. But fucking has evolved into a familiar intensifier, as in I'm so fucking hungry I'd eat dog food. In that sense, the F-word root has nothing to do with sex; it's a meaningless linguistic element, the American equivalent of the British "bloody," says Richard A. Spears in Slang and Euphemism. So what's the big deal?
Although George Carlin won't have to shorten his list of "Seven Dirty Words You Can't Say on Television" anytime soon, there are signs that TV censors are easing up on fuck. I've heard it on at least one episode of PBS's Frontline program. The crew on Don Imus's syndicated radio program color their gags with an F-word now and then, and only bother to bleep out the "uh" sound, leaving little doubt as to what forbidden word is being edited. I've heard this same pseudo-bleep used on prime-time NBC's Now, in a segment about college-basketball coach Bobby Knight. Every time the trash-talking coach blurted out the bad word, the "f" and "k" sound were clearly audible. It seems as though NBC challenged the censors, and the censors blinked.
Why we need fuck
But let's hope they don't start blinking too often.
After all, we need it to be a bad word--our worst word. And by "we," I'm referring to both those of us who say it and those who abhor the brusque little syllable.
"To have good, standard language, you have to have bad language. There always has to be a worst word," says Jay. "It's a fundamental part of our society: if you're going to have good things, you're going to have bad things. If you have the best things, you have to have the worst. You have to have that dialectic."
In other words, it will be a cold day in, er, Hades before the Bible-thumpers let swear words with the potency of fuck be spoken regularly on the airwaves. Jay explains that once a word gets past the censors, it generally eases its way into accepted speech--and the religious right isn't likely to let that happen with language it considers indecent. "The church just can't give up its control over people's thoughts," he says.
Nor should those of us compelled to curse from time to time want fuck to enter the realm of accepted speech, lest it become just another limp, mildly unpleasant word.
Consider this scenario: you're watching the 11-o'clock news. Dick Albert saunters over to the anchor desk and tells Natalie Jacobson that Boston is about to be hit with 30 inches of snow.
Natalie forces a fake frown and playfully mutters, "Oh, fuck."
After the initial novelty wore off, this wouldn't be funny--it would be tragic. An important means of expressing dire emotions would be gone.
