The "F" word.

Went to a Car Dealer just to browse as our cars are falling apart (both cars' check engine light had come on yesterday) and we're tired of duct-taping them and fancied dreaming about getting a newer car.

The place we went was a Toyota place, and the person who greeted us saw our Ford and said that it's the "F word." ...I didn't catch it when he said it, only as we were coming home my hubby mentioned that he thought the person was rude, and I was kinda dumbfounded.

I can see the phonetic similarity between "Ford" and "F word," and under other circumstances would have found it hilarious, but hey.. that stings.


In "Spanish Apartment (L'auberge espagnole)," the British girl finds out that the French people refer to the school (university) as "la fac (short for la faculté)" and because of the similarity to the sound of the F word, started to use it instead of the English word for school.

When I watched that movie a few years ago, I didn't think the sound was that close, but then, when I watched "District 9" just couple weeks ago, (and BTW this movie probably had the most utterances of the F word I have heard in a movie) the South African actor's pronunciation sounded pretty close to the French word (no pun intended).


While I personally don't like to use the F word (usually just literally say "F word" or euphemize it with "freaking" instead of the real word), I am intrigued by how people use swear words and what effects they have on the psychology of both the people who say them and the people who hear them. Then again it's more on the realms of emotion and in cognitive science, emotion is still rater... hm.. hard to fathom, at least for me. (The professor I'm TAing for who currently teaches cognitive psychology declared to his students' dismay that he won't talk about emotions in his class.)

Words to have powers, though. Some day I may level up enough in my word geekness and be able to tackle it.