Possumblog

Worty Dirds

Well, the delicate sensibilities of the press corps and the closely allied pundit corps have been smitten, and the collected Fourth Estate has gotten their skirts all up in a bunch about evil President Hitler McShruburton launching forth with a vile stream of letters that when strung together form the word s***. Or, at least that’s what I read--they can’t seem to bring themselves to write it out fully, for fear of causing even MORE terrorists to suffer loss of self-esteem.

For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t use *h*t (or its closely related cousin, **it) in a regular conversation with anyone, because the need doesn’t usually come up unless we’re talking about what’s best to use as fertilizer, the cow variety or the bat variety. Oh, and of course, there was the time I nearly cut my finger off. But I also am aware that there are some people really would be offended by the more vulgar (i.e., common) s-term, so in a social setting I might rather use something more presentable, such as ordure, or manure, or dross, or dreck, or poo, or scat, or droppings, or dung, or compost, or feces, or poop, or muck, or doo-doo, or crap, or poopy, or number two, or turd, or caca, or tedkennedy. ‘A rose is a rose,’ and all.

Anyway, given the nature of the remark and its clarity of intent, I think it wasn’t that big of a deal. So, I would like to ask everyone in the press who have nearly suffered apoplexy from this indelicacy to please climb down off of your stools (so to speak) and try--even though I know you can’t really do it--to cover the news.