my favorite curse word

is well known to those who know me best.

a little history:

I grew up in a house where the words "shut up" were considered mortally offensive. This being the case, you can imagine what a curse word might evoke from my lovely parental unit. Since I never wanted the delightful sensation of having my mouth washed out with soap, I avoided saying curse words. My brother, not so much.


anyway, a few years ago I moved to baltimore. Which is known for many fair and foul things. one of them is the artful use of a good curse word. Also, I lived with sij at this point, and while sij is quite honestly the most genuinely sweet person I have ever met, she also has a mouth like a sailor. sij grew up in a house where it was okay to swear, as long as you weren't swearing at people.


(you can say "shit," for example, but not call someone, "You shit." I think this is a nice distinction, myself, and one i follow. one must have a code, after all.)


so under sij's tutelage - I still haven't mastered the fuck a duck expression in quite the same way she shoots it off - I acquired a nice range of words and expressions that would not be appropriate in front of first-graders.


And my favorite word of all turns out to be the word that a lot of people find most offensive: Fuck. Honestly, it just comes flying off my tongue.


so ingrid sent me this comic from xkcd the other week, and i keep pulling it up and laughing. I laugh at the other comics randall munroe writes, too (you should go check them all out) but this one makes me smile every time.










N.B. I actually hate it when people say "shut up." It drives me crazy, and when I had students, it was never allowed in my classroom. Mom would be proud.