loopholes and arseholes
"The Clean Airwaves Act assumed that fucking is a participial adjective. But this is not correct. With a true adjective like lazy, you can alternate between Drown the lazy cat and Drown the cat which is lazy. But Drown the fucking cat is certainly not interchangeable with Drown the cat which is fucking."
This delightful point is made in an interesting article on swearing and censorship in The New Republic - of all places - which fits right in with the zeitgeist here in Baroque Mansions.
Alas, nothing is concluded, and the article seems not to come down in any sort of condemnation of the Clean Airwaves Act - it is The New Republic, after all - but the point at the end, in the words of Caliban, is salutary: "You taught me language, and my profit on't is, I know how to curse."
And now I must go and actually do something...
5 comments:
There's many a time I've wished to drown a fucking cat - they're so noisy about it.
Puss
Not quite true. The F word must be the most versatile as well as overused in the English language. My very staid grandfather used to relate how an employee of his described a machine which wasn't working: "the f'ing f'er's f'ing-well f'ed" and it's hard to think of another word that could be used in the same manner.
Lord Woolf of Barnes, former Chief Justice, was once leaving court after dismissing an appeal against sentence. The disappointed lag in the dock shouted "you f'ing bast'd". Lord Woolf casually turned and said "well I suppose the b'std point is debatable, but I'm certainly not f'ing anything at the moment ..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUaWCcDlI5s
Ignore the wild spellings.
I knew it - Kiwis do skimp on vowels.
Pumpie - you're nkd.
xxx
Pants
Thut's roit, Pints. Yous clurly know your Nu Zild neighbours.
What, though, does nkd mean? I'm not, as it happens, I'm wearing a tailor made suit (back at work now, sadly).
Grumpie pumpie
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