The other F-word

Posted by James Briggs on May 02, 2006

In Reply to: The other F-word posted by pamela on May 02, 2006

: : : : Last night (April 31, 2006) I had CNN on as background noise. Imagine my surprise when I heard the commentator say that something would "go over" "like a f*rt in church." Since when did it become OK to use the other F-word on television?

: : : : I doubted my hearing. Maybe she said "art in church." But I googled and found several instances of the phrase being quoted on CNN -- "fart in church" cnn. I am appalled. Simply appalled.

: : : :

: : : Someone, somewhere, is keeping track of the moving boundary. It seems "son of a bitch" is now ok on American television, judging by the frequency it's heard on the few shows I watch. I am old enough to remember when "hell" was never said on the air. (I'm sure British tv has different boundaries.) My wife predicts that s*it will appear next year. We are, as a nation, quite squeamish about certain words, but the murders, rapes and torture are all over the tube. No problem there.

: : The NYPD Blue producers negotitiated with the network censors and got one "bulls**t" per episode in their last two years, but they pulled the bare buttock shots for the final season, in the wake of the Super Bowl problem.

: US tv has a strange reputation in Australia. You seem very puritanical when it comes to swearing and nudity, and there are heaps of super sanitised, sickly-sweet shows (I'm thinking of The Bachelor and those horribly scripted talk shows) but you also seem strangely "anything goes" at times (we would never have anything even close to the Jerry Springer Show made here). I can't think of an occassion when a newreader would say fart, but it wouldn't raise any eyebrows (although it would probably get a chuckle) if it was said on a talk show. Sh*t and f*** are allowed on tv here in "adults only" time slots. As for the "superbowl thing" - it seemed odd that this caused such outrage in a culture which has constant "upskirt" and groin grabbing shots in MTV videoclips. And Survivor (yes, I'm a reality tv junkie) blurs out what we call the "bum crack" (is there a polite term for this?) when contestants wear low-slung shorts. Are there two separate Americas? Our standards are much more uniform. Pamela

Pamela,
'Natal cleft' is the term you're looking for!