It does, however, appear in more recently published
resources. The Urban Dictionary, for example, contains a complete discussion of
the word, its etymology, and the various ways in which the word is used as a
noun, a verb, an adjective or an adverb.
It is, I suppose, a commentary on the changing American
culture that the dictionary now contains a definition that mirrors the comedy
routine made famous by George Carlin more than a generation ago.
Half a century ago, our oldest son, returning from a public
swimming pool, asked his mother what the word meant. Fortunately, I had already
explained sexual intercourse to him in an age-appropriate manner. She simply
told him it was a crude and vulgar reference to the basic human
reproductive function.
She suggested that when he heard people use that word, he
should say a prayer for them.
I shutter to think of the amount of praying we would have to
be doing these days to keep up with that admonition. Some enterprising soul has
created a web site called “F Bomb” on which are traced Tweets world wide in
search of various expressions of the word.
A map of the world displays another pin whenever new F Bomb is
tweeted. There are pins from South Africa to the United Kingdom, but the
busiest part of the world is the eastern section of the United States. And, of
course, California.
Of particular note to Web Watchers, like myself, is the
frequency of F—ing and F---ers that appear in blog commentary. It seems that
every time a writer publishes an opinion on any subject from politics to
football, someone will take exception and enhance their comment with an F bomb
or two.
It is the surest way to terminate any attempt to maintain a
rational discussion or debate.
The Urban dictionary tells us that a principal use of the
word is to express emotion; to emphasize; to reinforce the impact of a word or
a sentence.
The pity, of course, is that the word replaces all of the expressive
and powerful English words and phrases that once made our native tongue the
envy of writers and composers. The unhappy result is that this single multipurpose
word is dumbing down our nation.
There was a day when one might have excoriated a neighbor as
annoying, aggravating, exasperating, vexatious, bothersome, a pest, an
annoyance, even a pain in the neck. Today’s one-size-fits-all colloquial
assessment, would probably be something like: “He’s a dumb fuck.”
For the post-millennial generation the ubiquitous F bomb
says it all, whether ‘it’ is good, bad or indifferent. Along with the mindless
repetition of the word “like” it has become a hallmark for the numbing of the
American brain.
The entertainment industry, the prodigal offspring of a
stage once dedicated to uplifting the human experience, has embraced the F bomb
culture and given it the secular imprimatur that insinuates it into daily life
from the Saint Lawrence to the Santa Margarita.
I first came upon the frequent use of the word when, as a
college student, I was working in a stone yard. It was hard, manual labor, and
the men in the yard were older than I, and veterans of WWII. Their language reflected
the men-only culture of the draft-populated military.
Lots of young men learned to use the word in the service.
When my older brother Terry, of sainted memory, came home on leave from the
Navy, he
had already – in boot camp – acquired some of the jargon of
a sailor.
At one family dinner he casually asked me to pass the f….kin
potatoes.
If anyone else around the table heard it, they didn’t let
on. For my part, I was left to wonder whether potatoes simply grew out of the
ground, or whether they were the product of some sort of vegetable copulation
he had learned about at the Great Lakes Naval Base in Racine, Wisconsin.
