F****

I was travelling in a taxi recently and the driver, a rather matured driver, had this tendency to end his sentences with the F-word. I'm quite used to hearing it being said these days, especially when expletives like f**** are commonplace and accepted as part of the vernacular. I remember when I was in University, and I was studying modern literature plays in my third year as an undergraduate. My professor was a gentle, sweet lady, who had this twinkle in her eyes when she started to delve into the literary world. We would all sit and listen, spellbounded by how she made characters, plots and situations come alive off the pages of books. As we were ploughing through different genres, it soon happened. Modern literary plays reflect the society they were written about and there it was-the F-word. And we were to say it as we read the play aloud? But professor didn't blink an eyelid when she read the parts of the play, putting emotion into each word, including the F-word. How did she do it? She saw it in its context and read it in its context. She was a professional.
But does that condone the way we pepper our speeches today with expletives? Again, it reflects the society we live in- a society that is stressed, frustrated, challenged and fed-up. We need to change our expletives into something more encouraging, more uplifting.
SELAH