Frak

Most of the time i don't give much thought to language. I generally use whatever words come naturally for a given situation, pick up new terms and phrases from books, media, and my peers. But i have had the "1984" discussion concerning Newspeak a few times, as well as the discussion on why curse words are curse words. I mean they're just words, right? Isn't it the intent behind the words that matters? Oh right, the words you choose indicate what your intent is. But i'll save the larger discussion for another time and move on to the point of this post.

So i've started watching Battlestar Galactica (i'm only midway through the first season so please, no spoilers!! (No joke spoilers either, sil vous plait)). As you BSG fans out there know, their expletive of choice is "frak". Contextually it is a minced oath for (obviously) the word "fuck", and is proving to be just as versatile and hilarious, in my opinion. "Don't frak with me", "Oh, frak!", "We need to get off this *frakking* planet". And so on.

At first i thought it was just a lame attempt to get around the censors, but the word is so well-integrated into the dialogue; my compliments to the actors for embracing the term and making it sound natural. So natural, in fact, that it seems to have bled into my own vernacular; i've caught myself using the word quite a bit over the past few weeks. And this isn't like back in the 90s when i intentionally adopted a handful of British curses because they sounded so cool coming from Spike. No, it's reflexively the first expletive out of my mouth when something happens. Of course as soon as i hear it, it makes me laugh, so whatever pissed me off doesn't seem so bad anymore. So maybe this is a good thing.

Anyway, i have to go and file my frakking tax returns.