F

I’ll admit it. I’m ticked off at the abuse that the word fuck and all of its derivatives have gotten recently. The power of “fuck” used to be reserved for when you were really full of anger or hate. It worked so well.

But now it’s lost its potency. Adolescents, male and female, use it as a sign of coolness and maturity. Late night hosts use it to beef up ratings and tease responses from fuck-hungry audiences. Soon it will no longer be a bleep word on radio or TV.

The loss of its vulgar impact is bad enough. But fuckin’ has displaced so many adjectives and adverbs—you know, the kind that actually stimulate thought—that the English language has suffered.

So make a commitment to use fuck only when appropriate, for example:
Man, that’s what I call a fuck…or…
You wouldn’t have hit my car you fucking bastard if you hadn’t been on your fucking cell phone.