Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 (Tek) 9/28/84 based on 9/17/84; site tekig1.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!tektronix!tekig1!briand
From: briand@tekig1.UUCP (Brian Diehm)
Newsgroups: net.jokes
Subject: *!*#^&$#@*$#&*!^&#@*(! by Dave Barry
Message-ID: <1808@tekig1.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Dec-84 20:59:23 EST
Article-I.D.: tekig1.1808
Posted: Thu Dec  6 20:59:23 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Dec-84 05:20:43 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 92

The following is a Dave Barry column, illegally posted for your enjoyment:
_______________________________________________________________________________

     I got to thinking about dirty words this morning when I woke up and looked
at the clock, realized I had once again overslept, and said a popular dirty
word that begins with "S," which will hereinafter be referred to as "the
S-word."

     I say the S-word every morning when I look at the clock because I'm always
angry at the clock for continuing to run after I've turned off the alarm and
gone back to sleep.  Wheat we need in this country, instead of Daylight Savings
Time, which nobody really understands anyway, is a new concept called Weekday
Morning Time, whereby at 7 a.m. every weekday we go into a space-launch-style
"hold" for two to three hours, during which it just remains 7 a.m.  This way we
could all wake up via a civilized gradual process of stretfching and belching
and scratching, and it would still be only 7 a.m. when we were ready to
actually emerge from bed.

     But so far we are stuck with this system under which the clock keeps right
on moving, which is what prompts me each morning to say the S-word.  The reason
I raise this subject is that this particular morning I inadvertently said it
directly into the ear of my son, who is almost 4 and who sometimes creeps into
our bedroom during the night because of nightmares, probably caused by the fact
that he sleeps on RETURN OF THE JEDI sheets with illustrations of space
creatures such as Jabba the Hut, who looks like a 6,000-pound internal
parasite.

     I felt pretty bad, saying the S-word right into my son's ear, but he was
cool.  "Daddy, you shouldn't say the S-word," he said.  Only he didn't say
"the S-word," you understand; he actually said the S-word.  But he said it in a
very mature way, indicating that he got no thrill from it, and that he was
merely trying to correct my behavior.

     I don't know where kids pick these things up.

     Here's what strikes me as ironic:  When I said the S-word this morning, I
was in no way thinking of or trying to describe the substance that the S-word
literally represents.  No, I was merely trying to describe a feeling of great
anguish and frustration, but I'd have felt like a fool, looking at the alarm
clock and saying:  "I feel great anguish and frustration this morning."  So in
the interest of saving time, I said the S-word instead, and I got a conde-
scending lecture from a person who consistently puts his underpants on
backwards.

     The other irony is that for thousands of years, great writers such as
William Shadespeare have used so-called "dirty" words to form literature.  In
ROMEO AND JULIET, for example, the following words appear in Act II, Scene V,
Row A, Seats 4 and 5:

     "O Romeo, Romeo,
     "Where the F-word art thou, Romeo?"

     Today, of course, it is considered very poor taste to use the F-word
except in major motion pictures.  When we do use it, we are almost always
expressing hostility toward somebody who has taken our parking space.  This is
also ironic, when you consider the act the F-word technically describes, and I
imagine you psychiatrists out there could drone on for hours about the close
relationship between sex and hostility, but frankly I think you psychiatrists
are up to your necks in S-word.

     What I think is that the F-word is basically just a convenient nasty-
sounding word that we tend to use when we would really like to come up with a
terrifically witty insult, the kind Winston Churchill always came up with when
enormous women asked him stupid questions at parties.  But most of us don't
think of good insults until weeks later, in the shower, so in the heat of the
moment many of us tend to go with the old reliable F-word.

     I disapprove of the F-word, not because it's dirty, but because we use it
as a substitute for thoughtful insults, and it frequently leads to violence.
What we ought to do, when we anger each other, say, in traffic, is exchange
phone numbers, so that later on, when we've had time to think of witty and
learned insults or look them up in the library, we could call each other up:

     You:  Hello?  Bob?
     Bob:  Yes?
     You:  This is Ed.  Remember?  The person whose parking space you took
           last Thursday?  Outside of Sears?
     Bob:  Oh yes!  Sure!  How are you, Ed?
     You:  Fine, thanks.  Listen, Bob, the reason I'm calling is:  "Madam, you
           may be drunk, but I am ugly, and. . ."  No, wait.  I mean:  "you may
           be ugly, but I am Winston Churchill and. . ."  No, wait.  (Sound of
           reference book thudding onto the floor.)  S-word.  Excuse me.  Look,
           Bob, I'm going to have to get back to you.
     Bob:  Fine.

     This would be much more educational than the F-word approach, plus it
would eliminate a lot of unnecessary stabbings.  On the other hand, to get back
to my original point, we really ought to repeal any laws we have on the books
against the S-word, which should henceforth be considered a perfectly accept-
able way of expressing one's feelings towards alarm clocks and cars that break
down in neighborhoods where a toxic-waste dump could be classified as urban
renewal.