An Immodest Proposal
by Mudak
Chapter 6
Vanessa paused to catch her breath and wipe her brow just before entering into the classroom. She turned and saw Professor Wells standing behind his desk. He smiled to her and she returned the smile before she took her seat next to Chandra.
Chandra whispered to her friend, “Running late again? What happened?”
“I’ll explain later.”
The professor looked around the classroom, cleared his throat, and activated his powerpoint display in a manner similar to what he had done the prior week. “Seven Wurdz” appeared on the screen behind him as he said the title of the lecture.
“These seven words are arguably the most important seven words in the English language, at least for the purposes of this class. I’m sure some of you guessed what the seven words are, but for those of you who haven’t...”
He clicked on his remote and the next slide appeared. It was blank, except for a four-column-by-two-row grid. He clicked the remote one more time and the voice of comedian George Carlin filled the room. In perfect synchronicity with the comedian’s voice, the grid filled in, as follows:
“Shit” took the top row of the first column.
“Piss” was placed directly below it.
“Fuck” appeared directly to the right of “Shit”
“Cunt” appeared to the right of “Fuck”
“Cocksucker” appeared to the right of “Cunt”
“Motherfucker” appeared below “Cocksucker”
“Tits” appeared below “Cunt”.
The space below the word “Fuck” darkened.
The professor assessed the completeness of the slide and turned to face the class once more. “George Carlin called these the seven words you can’t say on television. They have been the subject of two high-profile lawsuits. The first one basically confirmed that the Federal Communications Commission has the right to regulate speech over the airwaves and the second effectively validated that these seven words are the ones that can’t be spoken on TV.”
He gazed around the classroom and saw everyone nodding.
“All right, everyone. Show of hands. Just want to get a sense of how often you guys use each word. I’m going to say one of the seven words. Raise your hand if you use it regularly. Shit.”
All hands in the classroom went up.
“Piss.” A couple of the girls in the back of the room lowered their hands but, for the most part, everyone kept their hands in the air.
“Fuck.” All of the men kept their hands in the air. About half of the women lowered their hands.
“Cunt.” Most hands went down. A few men and slightly fewer women kept their hands raised.
“Cocksucker”. Only two men and one woman raised their hands for this word.
“Motherfucker”. The three whose hands were raised from the prior word kept their hands in the air. A couple of other women raised their hands as well.
“Tits”. All of the men raised their hands. Slightly more than half the women raised their hands, although one of the women who raised her hand for the word “Motherfucker” lowered her hand.
“Interesting dynamic. Neither of the insult words is very popular. Beyond that, it seems as though the men are more willing to use almost all of these words more often than the women.”
A general murmur of assent filled the room.
“So let’s cut to the chase. If you’re uncomfortable with any of these words, I’d ideally like to see you get comfortable with them. I will be using all seven words throughout this class and they will become a part of our regular discussions, so if you’re too uncomfortable with talking about the word ‘cunt’ it could be a problem as we progress throughout this semester.
“The first thing you need to know is that all seven of these words have been around in the English language for hundreds upon hundreds of years, and are among the English’s oldest words. There’s some scholarly debate as to how long cocksucker and motherfucker have been in active use in the English language, but both of them are compound words involving much older words.”
He picked up a laser pointer from his desk and pointed it at the screen behind him. He moved the red light in a circular motion around the words “shit” and “piss”, commenting, “We’ve got two words for human waste...”
He redirected his laser to the words “cunt” and “tits” and said, “Two words for—how shall I put it? Lady parts.”
A few students laughed at his choice of words. He ignored the laughter and pointed at “cocksucker” and “motherfucker”. “Of course, these two words are sexual in nature and are generally used as insults... And finally...”
He redirected the small red light in his hand towards the word “fuck.”
Two students spoke the word “fuck” as he pointed to it.
“That’s correct,” he said. “It’s arguably the most interesting of all seven words we have up here. I’m sure everyone here has seen the lists out there that expound on the versatility of the word itself. But linguistically, it’s just as versatile. How many other words literally take up your entire mouth in one syllable? It starts with a labia-dental fricative, has a wide-open vowel sound, and ends with a palatal stop. Cunt comes close, moving from back to front instead of front to back, but it’s not quite as linguistically impressive.”
Vanessa stared at the attractive professor and stopped paying attention to his words. She closed her eyes and imagined herself trying to seduce him. Every time he said the word “cunt” or “tits”, she briefly came back to the present, but for the most part, she found herself daydreaming. She rationalized her lack of focus by telling herself that she’d be able to go to his office the following day to pick up on whatever she’d missed. She just knew that she had to be comfortable with all seven words. She could do that, she mused.
Before she knew it, Professor Wells was dismissing his class. She hastily gathered her books and walked out with everyone else.