I remember a time when "the F-word" meant "failure," and was related to poor scholastic achievement. On rare occasions, it was used as the absolute nuclear meltdown obscenity when every other expletive seemed to have the impact of marshmallows against a wall.
The first time I actually heard a woman say the F-word was in 1970 or thereabouts - the Vietnam War was going strong, and I was asked by my news service to do a story on underground newspapers, this one near Fort Campbell Army post, at the Tennessee-Kentucky border.
I was shocked.
To write those three above words today seems so naive, so totally sheltered - but I wasn't. I had already earned my reporting stripes covering civil rights riots in America's south and unearthing slum-housing scams in Tampa, Florida.
The young lady editor who rather casually made the remark, referring to the war, wore faded Levis, a khaki shirt and white, low-topped tennis shoes. She had long blonde hair, not willowy, but straight, and wore no lipstick. She had a thin mouth and a wry and defiant smile. She was cute, in a pixie kind of way, but by no means beautiful.
Want me to tell you more, maybe what perfume she wore? I believe it was Shalimar. Such was the impact of a lady saying the F-word, something today that is as common at the Rialto Theater as buttered popcorn and those chewy Jujubes.
While it is bleeped on most mainstream TV channels, the fact of the utterance remains rather obvious. Late night talk show hosts interviewing guests even joke about the possibility of four-letter words being bleeped out.
In late June, The Washington Post used it on its pages for only the fourth time in the newspaper's history, though numerous times it has dealt with euphemisms such as "he used a vulgar expletive for 'intercourse'" or as in "F---", or occasionally, "F--- you."
Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, recently used the word in Rolling Stone magazine. Vice President Dick Cheney uttered the expletive, I assume as an action verb, when he suggested on the U.S. Senate floor, of all places, that Sen. Pat Leahy "F--- off."
The Senate, for those of you who are not familiar, is a place where people refer to one another with comity and superlatives, no matter how much they would like to put the other's head in a meat grinder. The practice goes back more than 200 years.
"Mr. President (as the Senate's chairman is called), I would like to ask the distinguished and esteemed senator from the great state of New York, if he would allow me a few minutes of his allotted floor time for a few comments about... ." That's about as rough-and-tumble as the august body gets.
The exchange between the vice president and Leahy, a nut, berries and environment senator from Vermont, caused somewhat of a mini-scandal, though in terms of hurricane strength will scarcely turn a leaf in the current presidential bluster.
Cheney was unapologetic. It seems the vice president was upset because Leahy had referred to his previous connections with the conglomerate Halliburton, the one that has raked in various Iraqi contracts. Cheney was CEO of Halliburton before running for office.
"I didn't like the fact that after he had done so, then he wanted to act like, you know, everything's peaches and cream," Cheney said. "And I informed him of my view of his conduct in no uncertain terms. And as I say, I felt better afterwards."
This is not the first time Cheney, a serial obscenity user, has gotten into hot water. During the last presidential campaign, he referred to New York Times reporter Adam Clymer - and it was recorded - as a posterior orifice, or indelicately, an a--hole.
My own view of the use of the F-word is obviously complex, and has more psychological underpinnings than former President Bill Clinton telling his life - evidently minute by minute - in a 900-page book of emotional sorghum.
As I grew in the newspaper and wire service business, I began to learn that the obscenity was one of the 20 or so basic words in the journalist's everyday language. Balance this with a Southern Baptist upbringing, where the word 'hell' could be used only in a biblical context.
Still, I generally only use it with the guys and occasionally with a female executive assistant who is witness to all my intemperate eruptions. I never recall having used it with the first Ms. Willard, or the second Ms. Willard, or around anyone's children, particularly my own.
I joke that I allot myself ten F-words a month, though I probably go over this meager allotment by dozens.
And, truth be known, I thought it was kind of endearing when blue-eyed actress Cameron Diaz told a goofball Ben Stiller, "I'm just F---ing with you" at the sweet conclusion of the romantic comedy, There's Something About Mary.
Still, I am queasy of its use. It leaves the aftertaste of turpentine mouthwash, even when preceded by an apology, such as, "Excuse me for using this word, but this guy is a real... ." I find women sometimes take this tact.
All told, however, the word probably has more gutter elegance to it than when businesspeople use language fraud such as, "What's the bottom line?" and "All I want is a level playing field." Weasel phrases all, but then that's another story entirely.
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