Words that Don't Say Much, Including a Rude One

By Elaine L. Orr

When I edited reports, I encouraged people not to use the word 'significant.' If they really liked the word, I'd ask what it meant in their context. For example, if they said a company's annual loss was significant, I could be told it meant the company had an "unusually large annual deficit." So...why not say that?

In daily use, if a weather reporter says there will be significant rainfall, a listener could infer there would be a lot of the wet stuff. So why not say something like, "Three inches of rain in one day?"

I listen to a lot of audiobooks, many are thrillers or intense mysteries. In some books, the F word will be employed dozens of times in a chapter. It loses all shock value, and forget any use in emphasizing a point.

If one character uses the word a lot, it says something about that person. If everyone uses it, it tells me either the author has a limited command of the English language or every detective in a squad is vocabulary-impaired. (Mind you, these authors sell a *** lot of books.)

I'm not being a prude here. I've used the word, most often in conjunction with a really high summer temperature. Or humidity.

I'm a big fan of the Virgil Flowers novels by John Sandford. When Virgil's friend Johnson Johnson (don't ask) is in a book, the F bomb is used a lot, by many characters.

"Get the *** off my lawn."  (Possibly an adverb, or maybe a noun) Could mean someone is to move quickly.

"I can smell those *** muskies from here." (Adjective) A colorful way of saying muskies are very odorous fish--and not a good odor.

"Let's get the *** out of here." (Noun) Conveys anything from being in a hurry to being frightened of something.

And the renowned classic, "*** you." (Verb)  A clear insult, sometimes used to be funny.

If you ask why I'm writing this, I suppose it's because I find the F word boring when it's used a lot.

Funny story. When my mother first moved into a nursing home, she could still listen to audiobooks. Our  tastes in books were similar. Since she was hard of hearing, she had the volume turned up. (I don't remember headphones being ubiquitous in the 1990s.) I should add that it was a Catholic nursing home. Eventually a sweet nun asked her to close the door when listening to her books. Cracked her up.

By the way, using effing a lot is just as lame. And if you're a twelve-year old, it will probably also get you in a lot of trouble if you use it in front of a three-year old sibling.

For now, I'm struggling with the 14th Jolie Gentil cozy mystery, in which I don't even use the S word. Have to get back to the *** manuscript.

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