The N Word, The C Word, The M Word And The F Word

Recently, a young mother in Minnesota became the subject of a manufactured controversy when she used a well-known but unspeakable racial epithet against a young black boy who was allegedly rummaging through her bag. Shiloh Hendrix had taken her baby son to the park and could not have imagined the furore that would ensue by virtue of some clown with a phone filming her.

We need not discuss here the massive donations she has received in its wake, or the pathetic efforts of the Rochester branch of the NAACP to have her charged with some fanciful criminal offence - child endangerment, seriously?

What is pertinent though is that no one, at least no white person, must ever be permitted to used this terrible word. That was not always the case. The image below is a scan from a girls’ comic on this side of the Atlantic published on my thirteenth birthday, way back in 1969. No one batted an eyelid then.

A word that is still almost as taboo is one that begins with C. You know the one. Again, this is a fairly recent taboo. In the Middle Ages, it even appeared on street maps. As might be expected, Gropecunt Lane was named after or designated for the use of prostitutes.

Which brings us to the F word and the M word. The latter is a portmanteau of which Mother is the polite half. The F word was first used on TV in England as recently as 1965, by the theatre critic Kenneth Tynan. It is now used regularly on TV, rampantly on social media, and by many folk in everyday life.

As for the M word, difficult though it is to believe, it is often used as a compliment, especially by persons of a certain ethnicity. It remains to be seen why such a vile act as a man having sex with his own mother should be considered anything but the most outrageous of slurs, provided the allegation is false, of course, but let’s not talk about Greek mythology.

Finally, returning to the subject of comedians, not all the gentle folk of this profession regard the F word or any profanity as de rigueur. The letter below was written by the English comedian Don Maclean (not to be confused with the American singer-songwriter Don McLean) to the actor and anti-censorship activist David Webb. Four and a half decades on, it reads like it was written by someone from another world rather than simply another time.