Someone tried to tell me the other day that our society has gone into the toilet. I think he had watched the Daily Show the night before when some schmuck guest on there had basically said the same thing. He counted how many times I used the word "fuck," and pointed to it as a signal that we, as a society, had become more vulgar.
First of all, I pointed out that I'm not really an upstanding pillar of society, but then it got me thinking - have we really become more vulgar? And really, what is vulgarity anyway? The word fuck can't possibly be, in and of itself, vulgar. It's just a word -- Four letters on a page, or three phonemes from our lips. Vulgarity is all in our perception of the things we see and hear. If I were to tell some immigrant who didn't speak a word of English, "hey, fuck you pal," I doubt he'd feel insulted or slighted by the word. Perhaps it's not that we've become more vulgar, but that we've become less sensitive to that particular word's so-called vulgar meaning. I'd also say that there are other words that many if not most Americans would find more vulgar now than they would have, say, 40 or 50 years ago. Nigger, for example.
Other words have lost their vulgar meaning entirely over time. There was a time when the word Yankee was considered to be quite the insult. Originally directed toward the Dutch by the English, and later toward Americans via the Dutch connections to New York. The confederacy used it against the Union as well, but eventually the word lost all of its steam. A lot of that had to do with its adoption by a certain baseball team that won a few championships. Now, that's not to say that slapping any racial, ethnic or nationalistic insult on a sports team will eradicate the word's foul intent. I think changing the name of the New York Knicks to the New York Niggers, for instance, would be highly counter-productive.
But back to the original topic: what the fuck is vulgar about the word "fuck" anyway? It can't be the act itself. The act of rape is far more vulgar than the act of fucking, but rape isn't a naughty word. Murder is worse than both, but murder, kill, execute and all the other synonyms Roget might list for us aren't considered taboo. So who decided that there was something bad about this word? We need to have a meeting and get this shit straightened out.
Then again, what the fuck do I know?
First of all, I pointed out that I'm not really an upstanding pillar of society, but then it got me thinking - have we really become more vulgar? And really, what is vulgarity anyway? The word fuck can't possibly be, in and of itself, vulgar. It's just a word -- Four letters on a page, or three phonemes from our lips. Vulgarity is all in our perception of the things we see and hear. If I were to tell some immigrant who didn't speak a word of English, "hey, fuck you pal," I doubt he'd feel insulted or slighted by the word. Perhaps it's not that we've become more vulgar, but that we've become less sensitive to that particular word's so-called vulgar meaning. I'd also say that there are other words that many if not most Americans would find more vulgar now than they would have, say, 40 or 50 years ago. Nigger, for example.
Other words have lost their vulgar meaning entirely over time. There was a time when the word Yankee was considered to be quite the insult. Originally directed toward the Dutch by the English, and later toward Americans via the Dutch connections to New York. The confederacy used it against the Union as well, but eventually the word lost all of its steam. A lot of that had to do with its adoption by a certain baseball team that won a few championships. Now, that's not to say that slapping any racial, ethnic or nationalistic insult on a sports team will eradicate the word's foul intent. I think changing the name of the New York Knicks to the New York Niggers, for instance, would be highly counter-productive.
But back to the original topic: what the fuck is vulgar about the word "fuck" anyway? It can't be the act itself. The act of rape is far more vulgar than the act of fucking, but rape isn't a naughty word. Murder is worse than both, but murder, kill, execute and all the other synonyms Roget might list for us aren't considered taboo. So who decided that there was something bad about this word? We need to have a meeting and get this shit straightened out.
Then again, what the fuck do I know?