GEN: F-word origins and a song

[Johanna Halbeisen Woodland ES <jhalbei@k12.oit.umass.edu>]

Well, my version of the origins of the F-word turns out is only one of many.
Someone called it an urban legend (how does something earn that title?).
Some of the early German explanations sounded good.  Whatever.  Throughout
it all, a song kept going through my head. I wish I could put the music here
for all of you to hear it.

A Chat With Your Mom (or The F-Word)
by Lou and Peter Berryman (c)1984
(recorded on their "So Comfortable" album)

O the pirates with their fetid galleons, daggers in their skivvies
With infected tattooed fingers on a blunderbuss or two
Signs of scurvy in their eyes and only mermaids on their minds
It's from them I would expect to hear the F-word, not from you.

Chorus: We sit down to have a chat, it's F-word this and F-word that
I can't control how you young people talk to one another
But I don't want to hear you use that F-word with your mother!

And the lumberjacks from Kodiak vacationing in Anchorage
Enchanted with their pine tar soap and caribou shampoo
With seven week of back pay in their aromatic woolens
It's from them...(etc)

There are militant survivalists with Gucci bandoleros
Taking tacky khaki walkie talkies to their rendezvous
Trading all the latest armor-piercing ammo information
It's from them...(etc)

There are jocks who think that God himself is drooling in the bleachers
In a cold November downpour with a belly full of brew
Whose entire grasp of heaven has a lot to do with football
It's from them...(etc)

There's unsavory musicians with their filthy pinko lyrics
Who destroy the social fabric and enjoy it when they do
With their groupies and addictions and their poor heartbroken parents
It's from them...(etc)

[and as I collect this kind of song, the last verse is my favorite!]

--
Johanna Halbeisen
Woodland Elementary School(K-4)
Southwick, Mass
jhalbei@k12.oit.umass.edu