e’re running out of letters. I don’t mean in the alphabet. I refer to the letters we use to indicate a taboo word, like the “F-word.” Right now, almost all the letters of the alphabet have been designated as a reference to some term that shouldn’t be mentioned in polite society. There are only eight or nine letters still available for any new terms to be added and many of the other letters are being called upon to perform double, triple, even quadruple, duty as stand-ins.
For example, under “A-word”, we have “asshole” and it also in literature is used to designate “adultery.” Under “B”, there is “bastard”, “bitch”, “butch (or bull dyke”, “ballocks”, “bugger”, “bullshit”, and even “bisexual.” There are more terms under “F”, including “fuck, faggot, fat, fascist, and feminist”. The list is extensive and the only letters which seem to lack attribution for derisive terminology are “E, J, L, O, R, U, V, Y, and Z.” Even those, I suppose, could have some unpopular words associated with them in some strata of society.
The most ridiculous aspect about using “x-words” is that, although they are intended to allow discussion of vulgarity without actually using vulgarity, as Louis C. K., the comedian, pointed out, when someone uses a x-word in order not to use the actual taboo word, you still put the vulgar term in the mind of the recipient. Then the recipient has to think “Oh, that word,” and he/she has to use the bad word in their own head, negating the usefulness of “x-word.”
So let’s at least be honest in our speech. Censorship in one form leads increased and stricter monitoring of not just speech but ideas, which doesn’t help our society.
I blame Nathaniel Hawthorne. And then there was A-Rod, which, as we all know, means, "Son of Roderick," who was the last Visigoth king of Hispania. Oh, and you can blame Eve Ensler for convincing girls that vulvas are vaginas. I guess "vulva" is too nasty to say, thus ineffable. The only words so represensible as to merit representative letters are POLITICIAN and PREACHER.
