February 11, 2004
It's not just individual dirty words that caught author Jonathan Chamberlain
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I'm working on an anecdote for my blog (wendellwit.com, blatant plug) about umpteen years ago when I was encouraged to go up on "audition" night at an L.A. comedy club. I kept getting invited back as I tried different material every week (Seinfeldian observations one week, Mort Sahl political the next) until I did a 'dating' monologue that included a sexual incident inspired by a friend (the same one who first pushed me onstage at the comedy club), and the club's owner took me aside afterward and uttered the ridiculous statement: "It's usually okay to use the word 'fuck' on our stage, but not as a verb..."
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Well, I think it is true that people are less offended by what the fuck?! than they are by did you fuck?!.
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And you can, in fact, "fuck somebody with" any number of things. You can never use "with" simply as an adverb, with any verb, except in the American Midwest.
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Thome dayth I with I wath a wabbit! [Only then i'd have to eat carrotth, ptui.]
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Both "fuck somebody up" and "fuck somebody with (something)" are transitive. So endeth the grammar lesson.
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...and of course, it should properly be "talk dirtily"...
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wendell, you had a blog umpteen years ago?
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Uh oh, busted by languagecop... I'm working on an anecdote for my blog (wendellwit.com, blatant plug) about umpteen years ago when I was encouraged to go up on "audition" night at an L.A. comedy club. There WILL be an entry on my CURRENT blog about something that HAPPENED umpteen years ago... If I'm not too grouchy, I'll also tell about how Robin Williams mistook me for a gay tennis player (at the same club)...