The worst word in the english language?

The recent prolific use of the word Faggot has got me interested.

Why is this word so damn offensive?

At a festival earlier this month, Crazy James and I debated this topic at length. We even asked a cross section of other random punters what they thought was the worst word in the english language.

For me, personally, I think the F word is far worse then the C word. When i find myself in need of verbalising extreme dissatisfaction with someone/thing I automatically spew forth the “other” F word. It is usually accompanied by the more common garden variety of F word. The double F word combo packs a lot of punch. I think they call it alliteration. For me, the big bad F word does not refer to a persons sexuality at all, but rather their total ineptness or sheer stupidity. The C word, in my vocab, gets used to describe the someone/thing which has intentionally pissed me off or made life difficult eg “that job was a C to get finished”, “She was being a C to me”, “I hope that C reads this” and so on…

Most of the other women in our study group were of a similar opinion.

On the other hand, some gents we questioned were adamant that the C word is held in higher regard as hard core insult. Others agreed that the F word was probably worse.

I plan to explore the topic further and post findings here. I warmly welcome any theories to this effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_%28epithet%29

fckn city faggotz

Smiths Lakes is not just a breezy 2 hour jaunt up the coast. Its about 240 minutes away, give or take. We went up to celebrate Gustin’s 30th and the recent purchase of his first real tinnie. Pretty odd mix of people: with the bday boy, his girl Amy and their 2 pups, another blissed out hippie couple from Lismore called Adam and Gemma, Bruggie, Tommo and Leah from Taree, Grant the sleep walker, Quincy the diplomat and me, booze hound, made 10 of us hangin in a stilt house half an hour from Foster on the last Sat nite in March 2007.

Plunging into a pacy mix of hooch and beer, it didnt take real long before we were in the swing of things. With no food in the house and the beer rapidly disappearing down the gullets of the majority, we headed to the local bowlo for a feed.

Up until this point, there was a general sense of joviality. We even learned about Cavitation as we sat on the grand back deck and experienced the canopy in its golden afternoon glory. Our curiosity was sparked by a couple of minor points of difference between the country and city cousins which started as friendly banter. The Taree gang’s preference to bongs over spliffs was wow worthy and their extensive knowlege of catching fish was pretty impressive. All we could do was just sit there and ask them more questions. Whilst we city cousins were fascinated by the colourful tales of rural living, it became apparent that our sincerity was being misread as smart ass.

At the bistro a lot of us ordered the Flathead and it was delicious. Gus got the steak. I was a bit put out that I only got 3 little bits of fish but the chips were good and the salad had feta and beetroot along with the usual grated carrot and iceberg. Meanwhile the rounds of beer kept coming. Tommo was probably in the worst shape out of all of us as he staggered around sneering “Don’t fear it” at everything. Sensing that we were thoroughly enjoying his perfomance Tommo proudly announced “That calls is the best calls cos I made it – Don’t fear it!”. Quincy’s meal evaporated down Tommo’s throat within a minute of its table debut, and as Quincy and Grant were waiting for round two I watched aghast as Tommo shovelled sloppy handfuls of chips into his coupon. Down the other end of the table Bruggsie was mumbling incoherent somethings about a particular group of “fucken city faggots”. Quincy diffused the situation with the slickness of a professional and I wrangled a lift home for us all on the Bowlo courtesy bus. The Taree melee decided to pack up and drive back to their comfort zone. Leaving us city faggots to enjoy the rest of the evening.

Back at the joint, Gemma and I whipped up a noxious punch that got sloshed about. At some point there was talk of taking the boat out, which got down graded to just sitting in the boat whilst it was still parked on the trailer on the street. This got vetoed too. Then a pasta salad appeared and was demolished in short time. The punch produced rapid results; a short high spike of sugary pep followed by a sharp hard crash sent us all to our respective bedrooms by 1am. There was only one recorded incidence of spew town which was suprisingy considering the volume and velocity at which we had been imbibing.

Breakfast at the Frothy Coffee boatshed cafe. I had the Eggs Benedict with extra Avocado and unrequested extra Rocket. The kitchen was staffed by 3 girls who seemed swamped by our patronage. We killed about an hour and a half toying with the table numbers and discussing the previous nite. The word Faggot got bandied about a bit, again.