Not to mention 'Freedom Under Clark Kerr', used in the late 50's student
protests at UC.
Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> wrote in message
news:telecom25.240.9@telecom-digest.org:
> By Joel Achenbach
> Sunday, June 25, 2006;
> The most versatile word in our language can do almost anything, other
> than be printed in a family newspaper. It can be a noun, a verb, a
> gerund, an adjective or just an expletive. It can be literal or
> figurative. Although it has an explicit sexual meaning, it's usually
> used figuratively these days, as an all-purpose intensifier.
> The F-word remains taboo. But just barely. We may be entering an era
> in which this fabled vulgarity is on its way to becoming just another
> word -- its transgressive energy steadily sapped by overuse.
> From hip-hop artists to bloggers to the vice president of the United
> States, everyone's dropping the F-bomb. Young people in particular
> may not grasp how special this word has been in the past. They may
> not realize how, like an old sourdough starter, the word has been
> lovingly preserved over the centuries and passed from generation to
> generation. For the good of human communication we must come
> together, as a people, to protect this word, and ensure that, years
> from now, it remains obscene.
> Our leaders aren't helping. Before he was elected president, George
> W. Bush used the word repeatedly during an interview with Tucker
> Carlson. Dick Cheney on the Senate floor told a Democratic senator to
> eff himself. Presidential candidate John F. Kerry said of Bush and the
> war, "Did I expect George Bush to [mess] it up as badly as he did? I
> don't think anybody did." No one is shocked that these people use such
> language, but as statesmanship it's not exactly Lincolnesque.
> More generally, the word is imperiled by the profusion of
> communications technologies. Everyone's talking, e-mailing, blogging
> and commenting on everyone else's comments. Combine that with partisan
> rancor and a general desperation to get one's message across, and
> naturally the word gets overtaxed. In Blogworld there are no idiots
> anymore, only [blithering] idiots. The most opportunistic move in the
> corporate realm may have been the decision by a retailer to call
> itself French Connection United Kingdom, which allowed it to put the
> company's initials on T-shirts everywhere. Jeepers, that's clever!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/23/AR2006062301378.html
Mark J (mjlas02@cox.net)