By onestormynight
Digital delivery
A few years ago, my New Year's Resolution was to reduce the number of expletives I used daily by half. Unlike other of my resolutions, this effort fizzled after a few days.
I can't believe how profane my daily speech has become over the years. There was a time when I would inwardly wince whenever I heard four-letter words or used them myself. I thought it sounded coarse and offensive, and a sure sign that a person has, at least temporarily, lost the ability to be more eloquent.
I really look forward to the annual new words list, though as a Troglodyte, most words have no application in my everyday life. This was the case with the expression "woke" when it first started appearing in the media. I thought it was a simplistic use of the word "woke." (I use simplistic here to mean something that appears simple on the surface but is actually far more complex.) I was right.
I almost didn't want to know the actual definition. What if it meant yet another word I shouldn't use?
In the early 1960s, a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein Stranger in a Stranger Land introduced the neologism "grokking." This was something a Martian-raised earthling and stranger to planet earth was able to do that intrigued the other characters in the book, as well as the readers.
According to the OED, Grokking means "to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with" and "to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment." According to other sources, grokking also means "to drink."
Turns out, there's a more recent alternative definition to grokking amongst the computer geek population. But being a Troglodyte, I couldn't begin to say what that is.
It got me thinking about other four-letter words. The OED defines the word fuck as derived from 15th century Old German ficken or fucken, to strike or penetrate. The more common use was around at that time also.
Variations of the word I've heard over the years are friggin,' fricking, ficked, and fudge. "Of all the fricking, fracking, stupid decisions..." Wait! Did I just use fracking? What does the dictionary say about fracking?
According to the first definition listed, "fracking is a well-stimulation technique involving the fracturing of formations in bedrock by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the high-pressure injection of "fracking fluid" into a wellbore to create cracks in the deep rock formations through which natural gas, petroleum, and brine will flow more freely."
Be fruitful and multiply. Subdue the earth.
Hmmm. Sounds an awful lot like fucking to me.
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