Is The F Word Even Bad Anymore?
--
I’m fucking curious.
In 2011, I tried to get my editor to approve the use of the word “shit” in a headline. To quote Cher Horowitz, I was brutally rebuffed. Yesterday, during the course of my usual internet comings and goings, I spotted this headline:
“Chrissy Teigen Just Got So Fucking Real About Giving Birth And People Love Her For It”
I was more taken aback by this headline than I was about Chrissy’s reference to vaginal tearing during labor. Not that the use of the F word was offensive, but just that it was allowed. Granted, Buzzfeed is not really a barometer for right and wrong, but it did get me thinking about how we use bad words (I’m using “bad” instead of curse or swear, because I think those are ridiculous ways to refer to language).
If we’re using bad words in the normal course of digital content communication, sans placeholder text, asterisks, etc, are these words even bad anymore? We used to use the F word to offend, shock, or insult. There used to be an element of punk rock, of rebellion in its use. Now we’re using it as a normal adjective in clickbait. Has the word “fuck,” forgive the pun, gone soft?
I was once considered too young to utter the word “fuck,” much as I was once too young to vote or drink, though nobody could really tell me why. The lack of codification around words considered bad leaves a lot of room not just for people to interpret them as they wish, but for the words themselves to evolve. It’s fucking chaos.
To shed light on the matter, I consulted the utmost authority on words and social media shade, Merriam Webster. I never imagined my favorite account to keep up with on Twitter would be the goddamn dictionary, but here we are. Not only does this glorious institution list the word, but also it refers to it with surprising language.
Do you see that? Usually! That means there are times when the F word is not obscene, and not vulgar. When are those times? Is the time now? Has our modern slang lexicon relied so heavily on the F word for punctuation, humor, and color that we’ve scrubbed its devilish coating clean off?
