Word: worded
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...word so powerful that it evokes a frenzy when it's used? What we view as offensive has changed over time and continues to change. Right now we're at a point where sexual scatological terms are considered not really that bad. They still have power but not as much as they used to even, let's say, 50 years ago. The difference is immense. In the past couple of decades, we've seen a real explosion in how widely [the F word is] being used, because people are more comfortable with it and less puritanical about...
What was the most notorious use of the word on TV when it's either been blurted out or said intentionally? Kenneth Tynan used it in England in a 1965 interview on a BBC talk show, and that was a tremendously prominent thing. The newspapers were outraged. He was then the director of the National Theatre. The BBC was forced to apologize, politicians attempted not only to remove Tynan from his post but to remove the head of the BBC because of it, to prosecute him for using obscene words. In America, it's been used a number of times...
...must have intensified because of casual use on the Internet, right? I don't really think so. The thing is, people do use this word all the time. The fact that before the Internet you weren't necessarily exposed to it doesn't mean it wasn't out there...
...word yourself? Yes. I don't use it overwhelmingly commonly, and most of the words that are in this book I don't use. But you know I use it from time to time as necessary...
...personally a relatively formal man, and I wear a suit every day. I don't know if they expect me to be some wild and crazy guy because I wrote this book, so I don't know if they see me and are surprised that I might use the word. I'm just not sure. But there's no reason why I wouldn't. It's part of our speech...