Fad Words, Bad Words

As a writer I make it my business to be aware of the way words are used. For example, certain words and phrases come in and out of fashion. Last year it was "awesome." You don't hear that much anymore. It's been replaced by "amazing." When I was a young man and a pretty girl walked by, we might say "hubba, hubba." Weird and silly, no? In modern times, it seems that the expletive "f—king" has become an all-purpose adjective with no meaning. I'm kind of sorry that it has become so prevalent. It has lost the impact that it used to have. Not many people are shocked by its use anymore.

This brings me to my second topic, bad words. I have to wonder what makes a particular word considered naughty. For example, in the paragraph above, I did not spell out the word "f—king" completely so as to not shock the sensibilities of anyone reading this. What is strange about this is that most of its synonyms such as fornicating, making love, having sexual intercourse, screwing, copulate and so forth are not bleeped on TV. The same is true to references to a part of the female anatomy. Vagina is okay, but c—t is a no-no. I don't know of any bleeped words for the equivalent organ on a man, although there are many slang words for penis, such as dick, prick, dong, wang and willie. S—t is a not allowed, but excrement, manure, poop and so forth are not. Why?

The way all this is handled on TV is ridiculous. Bleeping the word out or replacing it with an innocuous similar sounding word is silly. Everyone knows what is meant; so why not come right out and say it. Most children by the time they are seven or eight have heard the words if not from their parents, from other adult and older children. Many are confused when they are chastised for saying what is commonly bandied about.

Do I use these words in my writing? Sparsely. Only when a character's personality is such that he or she would use such words. In a satire I wrote, I had a character that uses expletives quite frequently, but would not use the actual world but its synonym. He would say things like, "You fornicating so and so." Also, he would chastize other people when they would use the "bad" words.