Linguistic Tweaking

So ... could we retire the "F" word?

Back in the day (wa-a-a-y back, if you're my age), even the tough guys in my neighborhood didn't use the word. It was the most well known of several you just didn't use, especially in front of your mom or a girl you liked. Of course, I didn't come from a very rough neighborhood, so there may have been places where it was already impacting daily speech patterns, but if so, we didn't know about it.

Not so today. With plenty of encouragement from the entertainment industry (movies, rappers, punk rockers, etc.) it now peppers the speech of grade schoolers. Trash talk has become small talk. And, courtesy the feminist movement, it's also no longer the preserve of the guys. Follow a pack of teenage girls around the mall for 15 minutes some Saturday and listen to the conversation. "Swear like a sailor" comes to mind.

Once a word that made a big, if negative impact, it's become as common as "and uh" and "like." In fact, for the generation now in high school, it is, like the once sacred act it purports to denote, nothing more or less than punctuation. The act itself — devalued through careless, thoughtless repetition with little connection to the intimacy of committed love it was intended to express — has lost all meaning and purpose. Neither the act nor the accompanying four-letter word carries much punch anymore. Spoken in the wrong company, it once might have earned you a punch in the jaw. Today it rarely raises an eyebrow. In fact, it's a badge of coolness in certain circles, along with baggy, fallin' down britches, black fingernail polish, multiple tattoos and piercings in sensitive areas.

Even Christians don't want to be left out. They do the best they can, albeit obliquely, using sound-alike terms in an attempt to get with the cool without breaking the rule, as it were. I've heard otherwise orthodox, Bible-believin', church goin' folk substitute forkin', freakin', frickin,' friggin' and just plain f'n — with no thought to what Paul might have meant in his discussion of the letter vs. the spirit of the law.

Linguists will tell you (if they haven't already given up and retired to monasteries in the desert) that the way we use our words says a lot about our culture. In this case, our society has managed, despite its best attempts to do otherwise, to make the subject of sex commonplace and ... well, downright boring. About as fun as chain-smoking cigars. The whole thing leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

I'd like to suggest that it-s time for a thorough-going change. We've worn this one out. So how 'bout we all agree on a new word?

My vote goes to tweak.

I know. It's an irritating word, but ... not quite the same. But say it over and over. Kind of obnoxious, right? Now use it three or four times in the same sentence. What have you got? An expletive that, unlike its well-worn predecessor, actually gets more distasteful with use!

And use it we do. Our project at work doesn't need a rewrite or another edit anymore, it just needs a tweak. We don't adjust things anymore. We tweak them. We don't get out ducks in a row, we tweak things into line.

Tweak is already in common use and, in my estimation, has already crossed the border into overuse, so it's an excellent candidate. Imagine it as punctuation — truly breathtaking, and certain to be every bit as aggressive, irritating, offensive and off-putting as the word we're retiring.