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Is there "Magic" in 4-letter words?

PaulMB

PaulMB

pfm Member
I ask forgiveness in advance for a bout of mental masturbation...

Around 1965 Kenneth Tynan said "F--k" on television. After that it seemed the word had been cleared by customs for general use. But it wasn't, really. Although small boys, and also older boys, would use it every other word. Today, we hear it regularly in TV series and films and read it in books.

But, it is banned on PFM, and you have to write "f**k." Which is really the same as writing it " in clear." It is also banned in all sorts of other places, newspapers, polite society, and in non-polite society when ladies are present. A man might use the word 50 times a day but be shocked if he heard is teenage daughter use it, although she also probably uses it 50 times a day

It reminds me a bit of the Jewish prohibition of uttering or writing "G-d", and all the euphemisms and circumlocutions this has led to for 4,000 years.

So, does this word (which is a very old and commun Anglo-Saxon word, probably derived from the German "Ficken," have a kind of magic content? So that to use it unleashes mysterious forces? I know there is no answer, but wonder if anyone has any thoughts.
 
The internet ‘bleeping’ is a likely entirely futile attempt to get around corporate swear filters etc and enable folk to browse the site at work. It is also a legitimate attempt to keep the site ‘family friendly’. I don’t allow offensive images (sex, violence etc) for exactly the same reasons. It is basically a site-reach thing, nothing more.
 
So is w*** for some reason as it has graced the pages of national newspapers.

The more f*** gets said/written etc, the more people get used to it, the less controversial and dramatic it becomes (cultural considerations aside).
 
^ Yes. No major power - other than endowed on it by virtue of it being a 'restricted' / taboo word. If you took that away, it would lose its shock value, and then we'd all have to move on to using something else.

Always amused me btw that naff as in 'Naff off Fletcher' was introduced in Porridge to give them something abusive to say (as prisoners would) that wouldn't offend the censors :)
 
I an glad its banned on pfm , if one uses these words in public service by mistake it can land you in severe hot water .
 
-alan- said:
^ Yes. No major power - other than endowed on it by virtue of it being a 'restricted' / taboo word. If you took that away, it would lose its shock value, and then we'd all have to move on to using something else.

Always amused me btw that naff as in 'Naff off Fletcher' was introduced in Porridge to give them something abusive to say (as prisoners would) that wouldn't offend the censors :)
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I always thought Naff was gay slang for a straight man (Not Available For ****ing). God knows where I got the idea from though.
 
CTank said:
I always thought Naff was gay slang for a straight man (Not Available For ****ing). God knows where I got the idea from though.
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"Naff" is a Polari term for dull or straight although where Polari borrowed it from is less clear.

It's use as a 'safe' curse word predates "Porridge" by a few years, being used in "Billy Liar" in 1959.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polari#Naff
 
Twat is OK because it was used by Robert Browning in a famous poem. He thought it meant something else, and people back then were too embarrassed to correct him.

I guess maybe it's not a word used much in the US, so doesn't trigger the rude words filter. In the same sort of way, 'fanny pack' doesn't sound half as rude to USians as it does to British people.
 
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