The Word

I’d like to congratulate to my dear daughter on her first F-bomb. It came yesterday morning just before 9am. I will not reveal the details of why or how she learned “the word” to protect a particular individual’s reputation.

She’s going to learn these words sooner rather than later in our house. Especially, since she attends 2 soccer games a weekend where “effies” and other expletives, slurs, epithets and vulgarities are so liberally distributed.

We are glass-half-full types. The way we look at it, is she just learned the most widely-used, and most popular word in the dictionary besides "and." (BTW, is it in the dictionary?)

Anyway, she’ll be better prepared to handle a wider variety of situations having the word in her holster. The trick, though, is to use it only in select situations.

We all know you can’t toss it out there recklessly. It’s like seasoning your pizza with red pepper flakes—just a few will do. Cover the whole slice and you’ll pay the next day. The point is you can F too much.

Let’s say, if Cam accidentally spills a glass of milk, then barking an F is completely inappropriate. But, say, if the milk splashes into an outlet causing an electrical short and a kitchen fire, then the word probably works.

Now that I’m a little older and wiser, I find I use the word less and less. My vocabulary has grown and, frankly, I don’t need it as much. I can now express myself in many colorful ways. I think I received this gift from my father, who, if you’ve been reading this blog, has the gift of rant.

Don’t get me wrong though, the word is a language in itself. So many meanings. So many uses. It’s punctuation. It’s emphasis. It’s descriptive. It’s active. It’s directional. It’s everything you want a word to be, and so much more.

We are proud parents indeed.

G