THE FRIGHTFUL WORD

At a place on the other side of the bridge where I work several days a week, the reproductive locution was utilized several times in various different ways by one of the gentlemen smoking cigars. So, after a crescendo of F-related vituperation, I hollered back there that they should chill out.
I am an expressive and fertile-minded person, and do not appreciate certain favourite verbs being used in vulgar fashion.

Effing, between two people who passionately lust after each other, OR a couple who simply enjoy each other's cozy presence immensely, can be a very nice thing. Please do not cheapen the concept by using its verb as a facile equivalent of damnation.

If that is what you cannot help saying, perhaps you do not deserve the privilege of huffing stogies with the boys.


As a pipe smoker, I am sometimes impatient with those fellows.
They're a frightfully crude and vulgar lot.
Not thoughtful at all.


That said, I do somewhat admire the Irish gift for employing the word in creative and lyrical fashion. It does sound better with a brogue. James Joyce, a most peculiar looking fellow and an Irishman with the gift of scribbling gab, was, not coincidentally, a pipe smoker, by the way.
His use of the 'F' word, most especially in his private correspondence, is both startling and perverse, reflecting a disgusting side to his soul.
His amorous tendencies were over-the-top depraved.
About which the less said the far better.
Imagine it Hibernianly.

The Irish climate being what it is, and with central heating memorable by its absence in soggy bog-island buildings, more so than in England, the Irish attitude to 'F' is unique. It's probably the only warmth they truly enjoy.
Naturally they need to express it, the poor sodding bastards.
F this, F that, for F's sake, and effing all around.
It's very triumphalist of them.

Here in San Francisco we can be more choosy and circumspect about our expressions. The fact that many San Franciscans aren't is neither here nor there. What matters is that the blessing of central heating and decent clothing allows us that discretion if we choose.
Oh, and drapes. Very important.


The idea that two people could commit 'F' together but neither expose nor exhibit their doing so is immensely heartening. I like the fact that I do not know 'F' all about the sex-lives of my friends, and that they share not one single aspect or iota. Some of them are indeed "the cutest couple", but they act like perfectly well-brought-up people in public.


Unless it ads oomph and clarity to the sentence, uttering it expletively is in immense bad taste. Do so sparingly, consider the effect.


'F' is a private matter.



I thoroughly enjoy James Joyce's entire oeuvre, if you really want to know.
But that is a private matter that we shall not discuss.



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