Oh, Toni! The memories! One of my daughters, at about two, was playing "Daddy goes to work." She put on his yellow sweater, picked up his lunch box, headed for the door...then stopped suddenly and announced "son of a bitch!" My husband and I gaped at each other then collapsed in laughter.
It was a little less than funny when the tiny tot sitting in the shopping cart in the grocery store exercised her new vocabulary within earshot of other shoppers. Luckily, they were all parents and I got a lot of sympathetic glances.
I remember coming home from elementary school and asking my mother what "fuck" meant. The blood drained out of her face and she gasped "where did you hear that word?" I hadn't heard it anywhere, I read it off the sidewalk. She told me it was a "swear word so bad even she didn't use it." Having heard my mother unload, I was quite impressed and began my quest to find out what it meant. The dictionary let me down, of course. Another kid finally told me, but couldn't handle the "yes, but what is the derivation?" question that was next. (That word I knew, the monosyllabic one was throwing me.) I think a teacher finally told me where it came from, using the "Forbidden Use of Carnal Knowledge" explanation.
I *think* it is the only word in the English language that has all the forms: noun, verb, adjective and adverb.
08-10-2005
Re: Little Angel
Threaded Mode
