Another long-drive-thought I had, wrote down, can read and remember is the word, “friggin.” (Yes, that right, and I can say it here because weblogs are lightyears ahead of TV on what’s allowed under censorship, and friggin’s rather tame compared to what else is being said out there, and TV shows have taken almost two years to work the word “ass” into almost every show. Now that Mr. Rogers has passed, I’m sure that aside from old reruns not a day’s viewing can go by without someone’s ass being mentioned every hour.
But what does a word mean to us once it’s heard and sometimes later, understood more clearly? Do we absorb the circumstance, the situation that surrounds the initial hearing or reading of a word, and does it take on that little nuance of the moment to be everlastingly entwined with recall of dictionary meaning at it’s mention? Does “love” hold different subtle values and emotions dependent on the first time we hear it rather than feel it, and does it affect our relationships because of that?
With “friggin’ ” I have this image of a British Royal Navy man, epaulets a-swinging as he masturbates to “God Save the Queen.”
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology