I find our use of four letter words, and some words and phrases using more than four letters, fascinating for what they say about us. We rarely think about what they’re for or what they actually do.
For the most part, four letter words like the f-word and others involving harsh consonants like “ck,” are verbal punches. Or words like shit – they rip or tear. They’re words of destruction, violence and power (or the lack thereof). I suppose that since they don’t actually produce blood or bruises we don’t think of them that way, but that’s what they are – the language of violence.
They don’t describe violence. They express it.
It’s also fascinating how many of them relate to sex. For some reason, we associate sex and violence. We may use a phrase like “make love” but that sounds soft and namby pamby. More often than not, we use the f-word, a term that connotes aggression and power. The way we use it is also intriguing: it’s something we do to someone, or someone does to us. Only rarely do we use it as a term for something we do together. It’s about power and asserting it over someone else.
I wonder what that says about us?
Also interesting: sometimes we don’t use the f-word in terms of sex but rather as a way to describe something bad we’ve done to someone or they’ve done to us. “I f…ed them up!” or “I got f…ed!” Put another way, we use the word to describe sex and also as a way to describe an unpleasant action – done by us or to us.
I wonder why we find sex so disagreeable?
Sex isn’t the only aspect that gets pulled into the arena of “bad language” (as my mother would phrase it). Religion is involved as well and, here in the western world with our history of Christianity, it generally relates to Christianity – and power. Who has it, who doesn’t.
Part of the reason for words and phrases like “God this” and “God that” or “Jesus something-or-other,” is that in our history the Christian church is a symbol of authority. It laid down the rules we were to follow (to put it simplistically). Our profane use of Christian language is, at least in part, an irreverent way to assert our independence — our power — and to take power from that symbol of authority. I suppose today, in our much more secular world, that aspect does not play as much of a role but the power aspect, the element of destruction hidden in the terms, remains.
It’s all the language of destruction and power, aggression and violence.
I wonder what got us so cranky?
(Note: I have no problem using the fully spelled out f-word, especially in this context, but I started thinking about bots and filters and decided it best to do it as I did so this post wasn’t considered something other than it is and get mis-labelled. I don’t believe bots and filters understand context — yet.)
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