Call me an old biddy, but I cringe when I hear the F word.
Decades ago, I believed that this once pearl-clutching, verbal bomb could never make its way into everyday vocabulary.
Yet here we are.
Frequent usage seems to ring especially true for millennials, the generation who entered our world between 1981
and 1996, and with Gen Z folks, born between 1997 and 2012. But this four-letter word is now uttered by lots of
older folks, too. In that circus tent, the list includes a retired newspaperman friend; a graphic artist blogger,
and no surprise here, our own President of the United States.
The latter, in fact, used the word while glancing at a hefty pile of paperwork regarding pardons for thousands
of January 6 rioters.
Apparently annoyed at being made to wade through each case, Donald Trump said, “F—k it: release ‘em all.” And
a few months ago, visibly angry about the war between Iran and Israel, Trump told television reporters, live and on
camera, that the two nations have been fighting “so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f—k they’re doing.”
Both outbursts made headlines. But no one seemed to care much.
In fact, there’s no escape from hearing the F bomb—sometimes many times in one day.
How did this happen?
Some say social media is the culprit, with one study finding that f—k is the most commonly tweeted curse word.
Other research concludes that swearing has health benefits: supposedly, cursing boasts our pain tolerance by
over 30 percent. Who can’t get on board with that?
Maybe the explosion of cable and streaming services that allow the word share some blame as well. After all,
these platforms are more popular than PG-rated broadcast networks; also, none are mandated to censor curse words
the way that mainstream TV and radio outlets are required to do.
But many movies seen in theatres aren’t any less responsible. Did you know that the second-highest grossing movie
of 2024, Deadpool & Wolverine, reportedly has 116 f—ks in just over two hours?
By the way, this film was released by Disney.
Yet on the flip side of the coin, writers can choose to not be lazy.
In fact, more creative descriptives are always at hand whenever a character is frightened; in a perilous place, or
even happy.
Indeed, neither of this summer’s two biggest blockbusters—Jurassic World Rebirth and Superman, both replete with nonstop danger, death-defying special effects and terror—includes the F word, not even a single utterance. Of course,
the same is true for all classic movies, including Gone With The Wind, Jaws and every Hitchcock thriller.
I’d never heard the F word until I was a tween.
That was the summer my mom and I visited my aunt and uncle. We slept away from their house in an adjoining
cabin, which had once served as a bunk house for a failed school my uncle had run for troubled kids. On one wall
was a couple of rows of masking tape. A curious kid, I had to see what was hidden underneath, so very, very carefully,
I peeled the tape off.
There, the words “F—CK YOU!” were spelled out. Incredibly naïve, I thought the word rhymed with “kook.”
When I asked my prudish mother for a definition, she first tightened her lips and then replied, “It means two
teenagers who aren’t married who screw each other.”
Okay. That was her point of view, but it wasn’t even close to accurate.
In fact, while the exact origin of the word isn’t known, many theories point toward German, Dutch or Scandinavian
roots going back to the early 1300s. Providing more context, f—k might have come from the German “ficken” or
“fucken,” which means to hit, strike or penetrate.
Of course, every generation always comes up with its own way of expressing itself with new slang or phrases.
Sometimes the words carry over time and sometimes they don’t. Indeed, when was the last time you heard someone
say “fiddlesticks,” “fudge” or “gee willikers?”
In any case, and because I don’t live an isolated life, I’ll just have to live with hearing f—k over and over again.
But that doesn’t mean I need to like it.
Decades ago, I believed that this once pearl-clutching, verbal bomb could never make its way into everyday vocabulary.
Yet here we are.
Frequent usage seems to ring especially true for millennials, the generation who entered our world between 1981
and 1996, and with Gen Z folks, born between 1997 and 2012. But this four-letter word is now uttered by lots of
older folks, too. In that circus tent, the list includes a retired newspaperman friend; a graphic artist blogger,
and no surprise here, our own President of the United States.
The latter, in fact, used the word while glancing at a hefty pile of paperwork regarding pardons for thousands
of January 6 rioters.
Apparently annoyed at being made to wade through each case, Donald Trump said, “F—k it: release ‘em all.” And
a few months ago, visibly angry about the war between Iran and Israel, Trump told television reporters, live and on
camera, that the two nations have been fighting “so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f—k they’re doing.”
Both outbursts made headlines. But no one seemed to care much.
In fact, there’s no escape from hearing the F bomb—sometimes many times in one day.
How did this happen?
Some say social media is the culprit, with one study finding that f—k is the most commonly tweeted curse word.
Other research concludes that swearing has health benefits: supposedly, cursing boasts our pain tolerance by
over 30 percent. Who can’t get on board with that?
Maybe the explosion of cable and streaming services that allow the word share some blame as well. After all,
these platforms are more popular than PG-rated broadcast networks; also, none are mandated to censor curse words
the way that mainstream TV and radio outlets are required to do.
But many movies seen in theatres aren’t any less responsible. Did you know that the second-highest grossing movie
of 2024, Deadpool & Wolverine, reportedly has 116 f—ks in just over two hours?
By the way, this film was released by Disney.
Yet on the flip side of the coin, writers can choose to not be lazy.
In fact, more creative descriptives are always at hand whenever a character is frightened; in a perilous place, or
even happy.
Indeed, neither of this summer’s two biggest blockbusters—Jurassic World Rebirth and Superman, both replete with nonstop danger, death-defying special effects and terror—includes the F word, not even a single utterance. Of course,
the same is true for all classic movies, including Gone With The Wind, Jaws and every Hitchcock thriller.
I’d never heard the F word until I was a tween.
That was the summer my mom and I visited my aunt and uncle. We slept away from their house in an adjoining
cabin, which had once served as a bunk house for a failed school my uncle had run for troubled kids. On one wall
was a couple of rows of masking tape. A curious kid, I had to see what was hidden underneath, so very, very carefully,
I peeled the tape off.
There, the words “F—CK YOU!” were spelled out. Incredibly naïve, I thought the word rhymed with “kook.”
When I asked my prudish mother for a definition, she first tightened her lips and then replied, “It means two
teenagers who aren’t married who screw each other.”
Okay. That was her point of view, but it wasn’t even close to accurate.
In fact, while the exact origin of the word isn’t known, many theories point toward German, Dutch or Scandinavian
roots going back to the early 1300s. Providing more context, f—k might have come from the German “ficken” or
“fucken,” which means to hit, strike or penetrate.
Of course, every generation always comes up with its own way of expressing itself with new slang or phrases.
Sometimes the words carry over time and sometimes they don’t. Indeed, when was the last time you heard someone
say “fiddlesticks,” “fudge” or “gee willikers?”
In any case, and because I don’t live an isolated life, I’ll just have to live with hearing f—k over and over again.
But that doesn’t mean I need to like it.
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