Searching the web last night for current British comedy I came at last upon someone who was very funny…for the first forty-five seconds…when the “f” words began to fly.
Just a word, you say? Is it really “just a word” which can be accepted as readily as any other word, and “everyone uses it anyway?” That’s an odd view, because if you just try using the word “sin” in England (or the US) a barrage of scorn will come your way: How could you be so offensive and so arrogant? Society has become upended, without much of a fight from anyone.
Try using words like “Jesus saves”, and all kinds of accusations will fall upon you. But after all, they are only words…right? To be sure, the “f” word and many others have been street and gutter language for as long as the language has existed (around six hundred years). But in the land which once produced some of the greatest literature, the “f” word is now king of expression.
Where do we go next? How do we express ourselves to any greater degree now that the “f” word is commonplace? If your most powerful linguistic weapon of expression is in perpetual use, and your vocabulary has decayed to its lowest common denominator, how are you verbally going to make your feelings known in any stronger, let alone eloquent way? How frustrating that question must be in the minds of the Effers.
Fuel for Faith 