Is FRAK a swear word?
I listened to a recent podcast from Grammar Girl on swearing in Maze Runner and then read this one on swearing and I am having a debate now with my fellow teachers--is making up swearing still swearing?
Can the kids in school say FRICKING instead of the F word and get away with it? When you are clearly substituting one word, changing one phoneme--isn't it the same thing?
When Battlestar Galactica used FRAK, it's still swearing. That's what it is meant to be. Just a phonetic swap but the usage and meaning is still the same.
So taboos aside, we are riding a slippery slope when the guy who creates SHUCKFACE does it on purpose so the book can stay in a library when Salinger comments on the F word in graffiti in The Catcher in the Rye and gets kicked out of the library for doing it.
Can the kids in school say FRICKING instead of the F word and get away with it? When you are clearly substituting one word, changing one phoneme--isn't it the same thing?
When Battlestar Galactica used FRAK, it's still swearing. That's what it is meant to be. Just a phonetic swap but the usage and meaning is still the same.
So taboos aside, we are riding a slippery slope when the guy who creates SHUCKFACE does it on purpose so the book can stay in a library when Salinger comments on the F word in graffiti in The Catcher in the Rye and gets kicked out of the library for doing it.
Comments
Post a Comment