*#%^!

♦ 20 February , 2018

Excerpt from Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut, ©1990:

There are no dirty words in this book, except for “hell” and “God,” in case someone is fearing that an innocent child might see 1. The expression I will use here and there for the end of the Vietnam War, for example, will be: “when the excrement hit the air-conditioning.”

Perhaps the only precept taught me by Grandfather Wills that I have honored all my adult life is that profanity and obscenity entitle people who don’t want unpleasant information to close their eyes and ears to you.

I believe that is true.

If your oncologist, for example, said to you, “You have a *#%^! tumor, we’re going to cut that *#%^! right on out of there,” I think you’d ask to see credentials before proceeding.

 

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