That One Word

If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?

Of course it’s going to be the F word the millennials are so fond and proud of using.  Google says the word dates back somewhere to 1475. However,  its usage increased  around 2019.

Initially, the word was considered a profanity  unsuitable for common usage. What is confusing is the way the word changes meaning with the addition of different prepositions. For example, I am F….d up means I am messed up whereas I was F…d over perhaps means I was duped or taken advantage of.

At present, I am watching the much touted Mystery Serial Deadloch on Amazon wherein two female detectives of diametrically opposite nature and approach to work are put together to solve serial murders in a sleepy seaside town. One of the cops favourite expression  is limited to this one word only.

In my household, luckily, I am the only one who speaks and understands English. My house helps only understand and speak broken Indian English limited to requirements of their daily work. My mother is not in a mental stage to assimilate much though I sometimes doubt that she takes in everything which goes on around her but cannot just process them at normal speed. If she were watching the serial with me I would have been embarrassed.

Usage of this  word by the educated, especially, the youth troubles me because at times we just get into the habit of using certain words because they are in vogue or fashion not knowing their actual etymological implications.

I am definitely old school and it bothers me if such words incessantly infringe my auditory ambit. I cannot forget that it germinated from a slang which was seldom spoken by the sophisticated society once upon a time.

Not only that but the permutations-combinations of the word itself carry with it an emotionlessness, a nonchalance, a carelessness, a callousness which hurt the sentiments of aged people like me. WTF used as an ejaculation can express horror, incredulity, unintelligibility or I don’t give a damn kind of feeling. Am I being over imaginative?

But can you actually derive so much from one single phrase? Isn’t it shortchanging a wide range of emotions and feelings that humans are capable of for a worthless exclamation? I guess I am being ancient again but the word is a culture shock to me when I find even non-English (with very limited knowledge of English vocabulary) speaking populace mouthing the word without fully comprehending it’s import.

Nonetheless, I will not be radical enough to ban the word totally but possibly confine it to commonly unutterable colloquialism.

Do you agree?

Perhaps no…

A word for me is just not a word. It has a history and literary and auditory worth. Like corporates having net worth. What we speak shows how we have been brought up and tutored. How you express yourself can add value to your personality. It’s pertinent to clarify here that I do not subscribe to the colonial legacy which imputes greater worthiness to only English speaking population. Every language is beautiful, has its inherent gravity and expressions which are in their true essence non-translatable. So why derogate a language which binds a humungous world of  multitudes of  dialects  by constraining expressibility to one cuss word ? Will it not be better if we borrow from the treasure troves of other equally expressive, rich and even rare dialects  popularising them by inclusion and repetitive usage?

Think over..