Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Taboo Since 1500... Fucking A...

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But that men of few words are the best men. And that man is made in the image of a god. God, it is said, knows all, sees all, does all. So why is it art museums hire a maid to clean the pictures?

I can only assume it's so that words are lost on no one.

"Fuck!" he yelled at the television screen, and the stage was set for a learning experience when a tiny voice popped up: "That's a bad word, Dad." "Who told you it was a bad word?" "It just is. It's what I believe," replied the eight year old. "There are no bad words, just people who place too much meaning on them. So who told you it was a bad word?" "It just is, Dad. I believe it's bad."

You do have to wonder where children get these things from. Especially since I know from first-hand experience that that child's first (and for quite some time, favorite) word was "Shit!" Not just "Shit!" but "Shitshitshit!", always in triplicate, always with a huge grin. So I think it's fair to say a change in beliefs have happened since he was 18 months old.

He never did say who actually filled him in on Fuck's taboo status (a status, I might add, it fights very hard to immunize everyone toward),and there was brief discussion on the fact that belief doesn't necessarily make things true, but Wii beckoned, and the attention span of an eight-year-old just isn't what it used to be.

Not by a long shot.

But what the fuck is wrong with Fuck? Why all the hullabaloo? It stands to reason, if we are to believe that all life is sacred, and it takes a good fuck to make life happen...?

"I can't believe he said that," husband said when we were back in the car. "Said what?" "That fuck isn't a bad word. Of course it's a bad word!" "Who told you Fuck was a bad word?" "Hello? My parents!" "And what makes Fuck such a bad word?" "It's just not polite to say." "That's a god-awful bad reason to make Fuck a 'bad word'."

Not. Polite. To say. Harrumph! Too fucking bad. That's what I have to say.

Unfortunately, no one's gotten the memo that I make the rules now...

I do believe it interesting to note that the first accepted use of the word Fuck comes from a coded poem about misbehaving church personnel before the year 1500. (Yes, folks, you read that right. Priests were fucking your kids long before there were any homosexuals pestering you for equal rights.) Go fucking figure:

The poem, which satirizes the Carmelite friars of Cambridge, England, takes its title, "Flen flyys", from the first words of its opening line, Flen, flyys, and freris (= "Fleas, flies, and friars"). The line that contains fuck reads Non sunt in coeli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk. Removing the substitution cipher (here, replacing each letter by the next letter in alphabetical order, as the English alphabet was then) on the phrase "gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk" yields non sunt in coeli, quia fvccant vvivys of heli, which translated means, "They are not in heaven because they fuck wives of Ely".[3] The phrase was coded likely because it accused some Church personnel of misbehaving; it is uncertain to what extent the word fuck was considered acceptable at the time.
I also love how the article isn't sure about how acceptable the fucking word Fuck was, but makes no mention of how acceptable it was for the church to be fucking the children. I also find it amazing that even back in 1500, they had to write the word Fuck in code. That could be Fuck's new advertising slogan: "Taboo since 1500! Fucking A+!" Great fucking stuff.

What a fantastic fucking word. Fuck.

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