Word: verboten
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...after a guest sold a photo to the Oregonian for $100. Harding, worried that her contract with the Globe had been nullified, accused the guest, known only as Bob, of theft, saying rolls of official photographs were missing. He says he took the photos himself, never realizing it was verboten. A meeting among Harding, Smith, Bob and the photographer only worsened the situation. At the end of it, Smith claimed Bob's car hit him. Bob claimed Smith jumped on his car and Harding rammed Bob's car with hers. The Globe decided the brouhaha did nothing to diminish...
...outcry. The first episode contains a lovemaking scene with some fleeting, shadowy glimpses of breasts and buttocks -- more nudity than elsewhere on network TV, but discreet by cable and feature-film standards. Language is a touch rawer than usual ("pissy little bitch," "douche bag") but stays outside of verboten four-letter territory. As for violence, it is less graphic and less prevalent than in dozens of older TV shoot-'em-ups, from Gunsmoke to Miami Vice. The show's chief problem is unlucky timing: as one of the few new shows this fall to portray any serious violence...
...surface, to be sure, the whole category hinted of deep male insecurity: along with the assertions of sophistication and self-confidence came heavy doses of instruction on how to look right and act cool. But actually talking about such anxieties, the mainstay of women's magazines, was all but verboten...
Even on radio, where the most common four-letter vulgarisms are verboten, a host of popular "shock jocks" consider giving offense is Job One. Their humor is guy talk, kid division. The victims of their gags are familiar from the schoolyard: racial and sexual minorities, scheming females, body parts and bodily functions. A few years back, a D.C. radio host was censured for observing, on Martin Luther King Day, that "killing four more" would get + Americans the rest of the week...