Mind Your Language

It has occurred to me that since my young nephews and nieces are also reading this blog, I had better watch my language. Now this is at a time when there is already a widespread malaise of four-letter words and obscenities being freely traded over the air waves, in print, on TV and in the movies that I believe no amount of 'bleeping' (is that the word) by the censor boards can cure.

I remember many years ago, my youngest sister had asked me point blank at dinner one day what the 'F' word meant. She was then already a senior in the convent school she attended and even the then prudish Oxford English Dictionary had not yet offered any authoritative definition of the magic word. A young and naughty neighbourhood boy had shouted the word at her while cycling past, and I bet he too didn't know what it meant.

Of course my parents also didn't know what it meant either.

Suffice to say that this big bad sailor of a big brother was caught off guard and was at a loss for words, but was saved at the bell by my other sister who gave her that special lingering look amongst sisters that she immediately caught the drift and said, "Oh, you mean that, ah? I thought dunno what!".

(Now I bet her daughters, i.e., my nieces who are probably reading this are now rolling all over the floor ...)

What is the world coming to, indeed.