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It reminds me of an old joke:
I boarded an airplane, and was a little dismayed to find I was sitting next to a priest. I was hoping he wouldn't be chatty. I was put at ease a bit when he pulled out a crossword puzzle and began working it. After a while, he stopped writing, and massaged his furrowed brow. After several minutes of deep concentration, he spoke: “I'm sorry, but can you give me a word for ‘what you might call a certain kind of woman,' four letters, ending in U-N-T?†Immediately, I knew the answer, but said nothing. It was no wonder that the priest couldn't come up with that word. I began to perspire and cough. Then, in a flash of insight, I blurted out “Aunt! A-U-N-T!" so loudly as to disturb the passengers around us. Startled, my holy neighbor nonetheless encouraged, “Oh! Very well done!†He turned again to his puzzle momentarily, then back to me: “Now, could I trouble you for an eraser?â€
Years ago, when I took Linguistics 101, our teacher mentioned that taboo words become internalized as “taboo†because of the reactions we experience when we hear or say them. (â€If you are six years old and you say the f-word, your mother faints or your father slaps you, and that word gets a big red flag in your mind.â€) I have recently realized that “the c-word†doesn't cause any sort of internal reaction when I hear it, and I think it's because it's so taboo in society that I never heard it. I think I was a teenager before I even knew what it meant.
I came home recently and a housemate had written, “If you don't wash your own dishes, you are a C—!†on the chalkboard. I read it and thought, “I guess I should wash my dishes,†but it didn't give me the startle response that the f-word, or “bitch†or “bastard†would have given.
The other night, I saw an episode of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson where Quentin Tarantino was a guest, and someone mentioned that “bastard†(or “basterd†if you prefer) is considered a ruder word in the UK than in the US but that use of the “c-word†is more socially acceptable in the UK than it is in the US (Ferguson also seemed rather delighted that you're allowed to say “fanny†on American tv). Anyone have any theories why that is? A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to a movie review podcast on the BBC where they were not allowed to mention the full title of the film Inglourious Basterds (the alternate title that someone suggested was Inglourious Bystanders).
IIRC, one of the characters in the British film Shaun of the Dead uses the “c-word†fairly casually, sort of like how an American might use the word “bitch.†Then again, he also casually uses the "n-word" one or twice, so that might not be a good gauge of the social acceptability of the "c-word" in the UK.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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