Just say “fuck” already
2008-01-10 | Filed under Pet peeves, TV |
It bugs me when people use invented substitutes for “fuck.” Specifically “frack” and, before that, “frell.” Please, just say the word. If you can’t, or don’t want to, write around the word or just fall back to “freakin’” or “effing” or something; it may still be a cop out, but has the advantage of being transparent.
I don’t know why this bugs me. I often like real world appropriation of fictional words. I think it’s the supposed cool factor. The Battlestar Galactica people seem to have expended a lot of marketing energy trying to convince viewers the show is edgy and well-written. Every time I see or hear “frack” in another context, I want to point out that no, the show’s really a mess, and the characters only say “frack” because you can’t say “fuck” on television. And while I respect folks who jump through hoops to get their work past censors, let’s all keep in mind that it’s not an artistic choice. It’s a necessity.
Which is a whole other discussion.
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What if you hang around with people who would find it shocking? I know–find new friends. But what about a husband?
I have no objection to not swearing, I just have an objection to a few of the work-arounds.
Substitution bothers me because it’s a cop-out. When people get that angry, saying “frick” has the sting of “fuck” anyway. Then again, I grew up in a house where swearing didn’t get results (because my parents didn’t know what they meant). Honestly, I tried them as a kid and decided I didn’t want to copy my friends, TV, movies… Used too often, any swear word loses its power.
Today I only swear when the subject is appropriately maddening, I want to get an audience’s attention, and I’m sure everyone will get my point.
You know, I actually really like “frak”. I feel that it rolls very trippingly off the tongue. I don’t swear a whole lot, but I do verbally vent a lot. I just have always tended to use substitute words rather than actual swears — “dang,” “drat,” “friggin,” etc. So maybe I don’t have a problem with people inventing swear words because to me, the release is more strongly related to saying *something* explosively rather than the actual word being said.
I found after watching BSG that “frak” just sort of crept into my vocabulary without me even noticing it. To the point where, the first time I said “frak” to vent about something I had a momentary pause where I went, “Wait a sec, what did I just say? Where the heck did that come from?”
I haven’t watched BSG (yet?), but I’ve known “frack” for years, and it has a similar connotation to “freak”, to me: A lot like “shoot”, “crap”, etc.
My favorite “can’t say this on the air” thing is from Penn Jillette’s radio show, where they couldn’t say the name of his and Teller’s TV show on Showtime, so they called it “Bull’s Hit”, usually with a clap between the words just to be on the safe side.
My favorite “can’t say this on the air” idea is to say “FCC” instead of “fuck”, pronounced more or less “fick”, but I don’t think I’ve seen or heard of anyone actually doing this. :^)